Hunter Pence

 ( 1983 Births ) 

On July 23, general manager Tim Purpura announced that Pence would be out with a small chipped bone fracture in his right wrist. On August 21, Pence was activated from the disabled list. At that point, despite having missed a month he was 4th among NL rookies in at bats. Pence led NL rookies in triples (9), and was 2nd to Ryan Braun in batting average (.322), on-base percentage (.360), slugging percentage (.539), and OPS (.899).

Pence was a unanimous selection to the 2007 Topps Major League Rookie All-Star Team. The selection was the result of the 49th annual Topps balloting of Major League managers. Pence (15 points) came in third, and lost out to Braun (128 points) in the vote for the 2007 NL Sporting News Rookie of the Year Award by 488 major league players and 30 managers. He also lost out to Braun in the competition for the 2007 Baseball America Rookie of the Year Award, in the vote for the 2007 Players Choice NL Most Outstanding Rookie by their fellow major league players, and in the Baseball Prospectus 2007 Internet Baseball NL Rookie of the Year Award, with 16 first place votes, versus 666 for Braun.

In his third season (2009), Pence was named an All-Star for the first time. In his fourth season (2010), he batted .282 with 25 home runs, drove in 91 RBIS and played 156 games. For the week of August 30 – September 5, 2010, Pence was named National League Player of the Week for the second time in his career after batting .500 (11-for-22) and slugging .909 with two home runs.

Pence was named an All-Star as a reserve in 2011, the second time he made the All-Star team. He was brought into the middle of the game, threw out José Bautista from the outfield, and scored the National League's 5th run of the game. At the All-Star break, Pence was batting .321 with 10 home runs and 59 RBIs.

Pence finished fourth in the NL in batting average (.314; behind Jose Reyes, Ryan Braun, and Matt Kemp) and eighth in RBI, with 97. Pence made the playoffs for the first time in his career; however, the Phillies lost the 2011 National League Division Series to the eventual World Series-champion St. Louis Cardinals in 5 games.

Before Game 3 of the 2012 NLDS, with the Giants down 2–0 and facing elimination against the Cincinnati Reds, Pence gave his teammates a passionate pregame speech in the dugout shortly before the first pitch. The Giants ended up beating the Reds in 3 straight games to advance to the NLCS. His inspirational speeches have been credited by his teammates as helping them rally together during the Giants' postseason and to eventually win the 2012 World Series. His speeches have also become the source of good-natured ribbing between Giants teammates.

Pence was named NL Player of the Month for September, hitting .293 with a .393 on-base percentage and 11 home runs and 32 RBIs. On September 10, Pence hit his 20th home run in the 1st inning and became the 7th San Francisco Giants player to hit 20 home runs and steal 20 bases in the same season and the first since Barry Bonds in 1998. (Bobby Bonds, Willie Mays, Jeffrey Leonard, Orlando Cepeda, and Glenallen Hill are the others.) On September 14, Pence lifted his first career Giants grand slam over the center-field wall at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles off of Los Angeles Dodgers relief pitcher Stephen Fife and drove in a career-high 7 RBIs, helping propel the Giants to a historic 19–3 rout of their longtime rival the Dodgers. With the help of Brandon Belt's first career five-hit game, they scored the most runs in the history of Dodger Stadium. On September 16, Pence was named National League Player of the Week for the third time in his career, after hitting .448 with 6 home runs and 19 RBIs.

On September 27, Pence won the Willie Mac Award. The next day, Pence agreed to a 5-year, $90 million contract extension with the Giants through the 2018 season.

Pence started all 162 games during the 2013 season, becoming the first Giants player to do so since Alvin Dark in 1954, when the season was 154 games long. For the season, he batted .283/.339/.483 with 91 runs scored (9th in the NL), 27 home runs (4th), 99 RBIs (7th), and 22 stolen bases (9th) in 629 at bats (3rd).

On October 7, in Game 4 of the 2014 NLDS against the favored Washington Nationals, Pence made a leaping catch against the right field wall in the 6th inning to deny Jayson Werth an extra-base hit. This dramatic play held the Giants' 2–1 lead, helping the Giants to secure an eventual 3–2 victory.

In Game 4 of the 2014 World Series, Pence went 3–5 with a double, scored two runs, had three RBIs including one by beating out a double play in the first leading to a run, scored on a fly caught by Jarrod Dyson in shallow center field, and made a nice sliding catch of a bloop hit by Lorenzo Cain in the ninth.

His performance helped lead the Giants to their third World Series title in five years, as San Francisco went on to beat the Royals 3–2 in Game 7. Pence finished the series batting .444 with 5 RBIs and 7 runs scored. He had 12 hits in the series and, along with teammate Brandon Belt, had at least one hit in every game of the 7-game series. Pence's performance drew some media comparisons to Barry Bonds, in terms of unusual statistical production.

Pence was re-activated on July 7 and drove in two runs and started a double play after making a diving catch in a 3–0 victory over the New York Mets. On July 10, Pence hit an opposite-field grand slam off former teammate Cole Hamels, part of a 15–2 rout of the Philadelphia Phillies. Pence returned to the disabled list on August 20 with a left oblique strain and missed the rest of the season.