In the fifth inning of the Giants-White Sox game on Sunday afternoon, Rafael Devers came to the plate with the score tied, the bases loaded and nobody out. There were all sorts of potential outcomes. A double play would have given the Giants the lead and quieted the crowd at the same time. A fly ball would have given them the lead, but it also would have meant they’d need an ol’-fashioned clutch hit to score more runs, and they’ve had a miserable time getting those kinds of hits all season. A strikeout would have ratcheted up the sense of impending doom.Every single person paying attention, though, was thinking the same thing: You know, he could hit a grand slam. It was the bogeyman lurking in the thoughts of every White Sox fan. It was a satisfying-if-implausible daydream for Giants fans. No matter how sophisticated a baseball fan you might be, everyone is always a bases-loaded situation from thinking what if a big home run scored four runs at the same time?Devers did the thing:
https://mlb-cuts-diamond.mlb.com/FORGE/2026/2026-05/24/7b821bb1-ebe53210-6558644b-csvm-diamondgcp-asset_1280x720_59_4000K.mp4It was the Giants’ second grand slam in as many games, and their third grand slam in the last eight days. All of this makes for a great excuse to look up the history of Giants’ grand slams. When you get the chance to gorge on fun facts, you gorge on fun facts. It’s one of the most immutable laws of the universe.For example: Devers’ grand slam was the Giants’ 244th since they moved to San Francisco. Divide that by their 68 seasons here, including this one, and you get an average of roughly 3.5 grand slams per season. That means the Giants have hit almost a season’s worth of grand slams in the last eight days. The season hasn’t exactly been saved yet, but the road to enjoying baseball again runs through stretches just like this.So let’s look for more fun facts about grand slams, with factlets and tidbits welcome. Almost all of these numbers come from Stathead searches, and if you subscribe, you can skip my stupid jokes entirely.Keep in mind, though, they’ll never have a search that reminds you without prompting that Kelby Tomlinson’s three major-league home runs were a grand slam, an inside-the-park homer and a home run against Clayton Kershaw. This makes Dr. Tomlinson the John Cazale of home-run hitters, someone who offered nothing but perfect contributions to the form over his short career.See? Fun facts. There should be at least a couple more out there. Let’s start with …Harrison Bader hit more grand slams as a Giant last week than Pablo Sandoval ever didBader is also tied with Bob Brenly, Chili Davis, Darrell Evans, with one more to go until he ties Will Clark. He’s, let’s see, 14 grand slams behind Willie McCovey, but the season is young.The Sandoval one gets me, and not because it says anything bad about him or his Giants career. It’s just a perfect way to explain the randomness and odd permutations that baseball will spit out. Sandoval won three championships and made All-Star teams in San Francisco, and he’ll always be tied for the lowest ERA in Giants history, but he’ll never have as many grand slams as a Giant as Bader hit in four plate appearances with the bases loaded.
