San Francisco Giants Rising Star Accomplishes Extremely Rare Feat

One of the San Francisco Giants youngsters just pulled something off in the minor leagues that is extremely rare.

May 28, 2024; San Francisco, California, USA; San Francisco Giants shortstop Tyler Fitzgerald (49) slides into home plate to defeat the Philadelphia Phillies at Oracle Park. | Stan Szeto-USA TODAY Sports

The San Francisco Giants dealt with a bevvy of injuries to their outfield unit all at once.

Jung Hoo Lee was lost for the season, Austin Slater was out with a concussion, and Michael Conforto was placed on the injured list with a hamstring strain.

This forced the Giants to call up some of their star prospects.

One of those players was Tyler Fitzgerald, the former fourth round pick in 2019 who climbed up their pipeline fairly rapidly despite never truly being considered one of the best players on the farm.

The 26-year-old was called up to the Major Leagues in September 2023, giving him his first experience against top pitching to close out the season. He finished 7-for-32 with two homers, two doubles, and five RBI over his 10 games of action.

He looked like he could be an option for San Francisco going forward if he continued to progress.

Fitzgerald has had a couple stints with the Major League team this year, and has looked fairly good at the plate with a slash line of .273/.333/.409, but the Giants decided to send him down to their Triple-A affiliate on June 9.

In the minors, the rising star accomplished an extremely rare feat in baseball history.

When Fitzgerald was with their Triple-A team during the 2023 season, he hit an inside-the-park home run on June 15, become the 12th player in that affiliate's history since 2005 to pull that off.

Because those plays are so exciting, it's always noteworthy, but nothing that hasn't been done before.

However, what took place on Sunday is what was truly special.

On the first pitch of the game, Fitzgerald hit another inside-the-park-homer, flying around the bases after he sent the ball crashing into the left field wall.

That is now two times he's done that on June 15 in his career.

Allison Mast of MLB.com notes the only players in MLB history who have ever hit multiple inside-the-park home runs on the same calendar date in their careers is Stan Musial, Willie Wilson, Rick Monday, and Eddie Waitkus, with Waitkus being the only one to do so in back-to-back years like Fitzgerald.

It should be noted that all four of those players did it at the Major League level and not in the minors, but it's still an impressive feat nonetheless.

What San Francisco does with Fitzgerald for the rest of the season will be interesting to monitor as he had a much better performance in the bigs this time around than what he did during his first stint.