SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Giants have not stolen a base in eight games this season. They are the only team in the major leagues without one.

They’ve tried, mind you. Manager Bob Melvin has started a runner here or there. Michael Conforto tried running on the pitcher’s first move Tuesday at Dodger Stadium. He got picked off. Jung Hoo Lee took an aggressive lead after collecting his first major-league hit on Opening Day in San Diego. He got picked off the next time the Padres’ Yu Darvish came set. Nick Ahmed ran into an out on the road trip. Jorge Soler ran into an out on the road trip. Conforto blew the Giants’ best chance for a big inning in Friday’s home opener, making a grave miscalculation in the fourth when he tried to score from second base on a wild pitch. And what about Thairo Estrada, the only Giant to steal more than four (four!) bases last season? He was hitting .148 entering Friday. He reached base twice on the seven-game road trip. After his first three at-bats Friday, Estrada was riding an 0-for-17 streak. You can’t steal the first 90 feet, as they say.

Melvin is cautiously optimistic that the Giants won’t finish dead last in stolen bases for a second consecutive season. But he probably shouldn’t expect many victories to be borne on the wings of Statcast sprint speed. The Giants probably won’t win many games with their legs.

In the home opener, the Giants won a game with their legs.

Matt Chapman made an instantaneous read on Estrada’s double to the left-center gap, cornered his turns tightly enough to get a glowing review in Road & Track, picked up the frantic wave home from his third-base coach, accelerated down the third-base line, slid headfirst across the plate and scored the winning run in the ninth inning. The Padres made a near-perfect relay to the plate. It made no difference. Chapman’s 270-foot heat shaved off the microseconds that mattered, the Giants won 3-2, Estrada’s teammates surrounded him in a victory scrum, and a crowd of 40,645 walked out of the ballpark feeling perhaps a bit buzzier about the local nine.

Matt Chapman?

More like FAST Chapman 🏃‍♂️💨 pic.twitter.com/hi2M22rNm8

— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) April 5, 2024

“Well, thank God we won,” Melvin said. “Because we did a couple things early that basically swung the game to their side. We have to be really good about the intangible stuff: situational at-bats, fielding our position, not running into outs, stuff like that. We weren’t great at it early but got a couple of scratch runs late, and then the big hit in the ninth. … It ends up being a great day.”

Imagine the day from the perspective of the Giants’ third-base coach. Matt Williams wore a Giants uniform for a regular-season game in San Francisco for the first time since 1996. He received a robust ovation in pregame introductions. From the day he signed on to join Melvin’s staff in October, he hoped that Chapman, one of the players he most admired from their time together in Oakland, would sign with the Giants. And in the home opener, it was Williams who pointed Chapman home.

The Giants played up the nostalgia at regular intervals Friday. They put Williams and hitting coach Pat Burrell on the scoreboard in the bottom of the first inning. They introduced Barry Bonds and Dusty Baker to the crowd after the second inning. Jake Peavy and Tim Flannery made the on-field announcement to play ball. The club unveiled a banner under the broadcast level celebrating announcer Jon Miller’s 50th season in the booth. The poignant In Memoriam segment during pregame ceremonies honored Jesus Alou, Roger Craig, Vida Blue and others who’ve died in the past year. And there was a video package with a young Melvin from his playing days, stammering his way through 1980s Giants promotional ad copy, before he was announced in pregame introductions.

Melvin said he was touched by the applause for Craig, the beloved manager he played for in the 1980s. But he could’ve done without his own video tribute.

“For me, it was a little much,” Melvin said. “I appreciate it, but it’s not something I want to see. It went on a little too long for me.”

Welcome home, BoMel 🙌 pic.twitter.com/1EUepIcY5N

— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) April 5, 2024

There’s a fine line between celebrating nostalgia and pandering to it. The sweet spot is when you’re able to revel in the past without drawing too much attention from a present-day roster that is talented, engaging and compelling. The Giants spent almost $400 million to shore up that last part. Now they’ll go about the business of convincing crowds that are still populated with Buster Posey jerseys and Tim Lincecum jerseys and Madison Bumgarner jerseys and Will Clark jerseys.

With his every no-nonsense action, Melvin keeps sending a message that he did not come here to conjure old times. His thoughts remain as tight to the baselines as Chapman’s scamper home. He is here to win baseball games. What better way to marry the past and present than for the Giants’ former All-Star third baseman to point the way home for their current All-Star third baseman?

“I was just hoping it didn’t bounce over the fence,” Melvin said of Estrada’s double. “If it stayed in, (Chapman) was going to score. And Matt Williams was going to send him pretty much regardless.”

It was just as easy a decision for Melvin to keep extending right-hander Jordan Hicks, whose conversion from 100 mph closer to starter has gone smoother than anyone could have expected. Hicks followed up his five shutout innings in San Diego with a convincing, seven-inning performance that demonstrated his staying power. Facing the Padres for the second consecutive start, Hicks dialed back his mid-90s fastball so much in the early innings that it might have otherwise been cause for alarm. But it was all part of the plan.

The Hicks project is looking less like a role conversion and more like a complete reinvention. The same former St. Louis Cardinals pitcher who used to blow hitters away with 104 mph fastballs instead threw a sinking two-seamer was as tame as 90.6 mph in the first few innings. Hicks went sinker-heavy, throwing the pitch 65 percent of the time. Out of 31 swings the Padres took against the pitch, they whiffed just three times. That might have been by design, too. Hicks transformed himself into a contact pitcher in the style of Logan Webb, getting 11 outs on groundballs without walking a batter.

Go down any list of elite power pitchers — Jason Schmidt and Carlos Rodón being two recent examples in franchise history — and one attribute that often stands out is their ability not only to maintain their fastball velocity but to reach back for an extra tick or two in the late innings. Hicks took that concept and dialed it up almost beyond reckoning. He started out sitting at 92. He ended his outing throwing 98.

“I want early contact,” Hicks said. “And if I have the action that I did today with my sinker, I want to encourage it.”

Hicks’ strong start helped to offset discouraging pregame news from Alex Cobb, who had a setback with his elbow and now isn’t likely to return to the rotation until May at the earliest. Cobb had beaten every projection as he rehabbed from offseason hip surgery. He even hoped he might crack the Opening Day roster. But almost every pitcher experiences turbulence at some point as they ramp back up. Cobb’s elbow wasn’t bouncing back so he went for an MRI that showed a mild flexor tendon strain. He’ll rest for a week before he resumes throwing.

Hicks would’ve had a couple of more ground-ball outs if he hadn’t thrown the ball into center field after picking up a comebacker in the third inning. The mistake led to a run and was one of several loose threads that Melvin referenced in his postgame comments. Conforto’s baserunning mistake in the fourth was another. He sprinted to third when Dylan Cease’s pitch squirted away from catcher Luis Campusano, and when Conforto noticed that Cease wasn’t covering the plate, he dashed home. He misjudged how far away Campusano was from home and the catcher caught him in a rundown.

“It was very, very stupid,” Conforto said.

So Conforto, who doubled twice and singled to boost his average to .419, was among the happiest players in the home dugout when Estrada found the gap in the ninth. It didn’t even bother him when he caught an elbow to the face in the dugout exuberance. Williams wasn’t the only one sending Chapman home.

“Jung Hoo was waving Chappy in and smoked me on the chin,” Conforto said. “He was very apologetic about it. So we’re all good, Jung Hoo. It’s fine. But it was awesome to see Thairo get that hit. I’m really glad we won that home opener for … lots of reasons.”

(Photo of Thairo Estrada: Kelley L Cox / USA Today)