Season's longest homer caps crazy couple days for Giants' Hunter Pence

Hunter Pence went extra deep in the first inning against the Rockies, sending his home run 476 feet, the longest of any homer this season. (Jack Dempsey/AP)

Joe Lemire | Aug 28, 2013

Season's longest homer caps crazy couple days for Giants' Hunter Pence /

Hunter Pence went extra deep in the first inning against the Rockies, sending his home run 476 feet, the longest of any homer this season. (Jack Dempsey/AP)

It’s been an eventful couple days for Hunter Pence, to say the least. He supplanted a Sunday waiver claim with a dugout dance, a fence faceplant and a mile-high moonshot -- not bad for the first 48 hours of the Giants rightfielder’s week. To recap:

1) Pence and teammates Tim Lincecum and Javier Lopez were all reportedly claimed on waivers, according to CBSSports.com, though none of the three is expected to be traded. San Francisco is likely to offer the free-agent-to-be Pence a qualifying offer this offseason to recoup a draft pick should he leave, so the club would need to be bowled over with a trade offer, but a claim means at least one team was prepared to acquire him.

2) The excitable Pence -- his teammates cited his inspirational pregame speech before NLDS Game 3 last year as a key moment in their World Series run -- was spotted before Monday’s game conducting an elaborate, dozen-step handshake-slash-dance recital with teammate Pablo Sandoval.

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3) In Monday’s very first inning, however, Pence crashed hard into the rightfield wall while chasing a flyball. Though the collision was not for the faint of heart and required a trainer’s visit to the warning track, he remained in the game.

4) Facing Colorado’s Chad Betting in the top of the first inning on Tuesday night, Pence unloaded a home run to deep left field, clearing Coors Field’s bleachers and rocketing off the brick wall adjacent to the Helton Burger Shack. ESPN Stats & Info estimated the thin-air rocket at 476 feet for the season’s longest home run of the season.

Hunter Pence's 1st inning HR was calculated at 476 feet, the longest HR in MLB this season.
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) August 28, 2013

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Published Aug 28, 2013

JOE LEMIRE

Staff Writer, Sports Illustrated Staff writer Joe Lemire is in his seventh year at Sports Illustrated and his fourth season covering baseball full time. Lemire writes features and analysis for SI and SI.com and is responsible for the website's weekly MLB Power Rankings. He has profiled Pirates star Andrew McCutchen and Braves rookie sensation Evan Gattis for the magazine. Lemire's penchant for covering America's pastime is to be expected considering his inspirations, Tom Verducci and Peter Gammons, are among the most well-known writers in the sport. Before his current role, Lemire spent his first three years with SI oscillating between baseball, college basketball, high school football and sports business. This came on the heels of a summer internship with the magazine in 2004 and a tenure as a stringer with SI: On Campus. Born in Richmond, Va., and raised in Lowell, Mass., Lemire graduated from the University of Virginia in 2005 with a B.A. in government and a minor in economics. Before joining SI he covered high school and college sports for the Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg, Va. He earned two Virginia Press Association awards for his work, one while a student writing at University of Virginia's Cavalier Daily and one at the Daily News-Record.