SF Giants Minor Lines 4/19/17: Christian Arroyo with four more hits

Two up and two down in the latest installment of LF follies. First the two down:

And then the two up:

Man, those are two large humans. I wish they could keep all their large human body pieces put together on a little more consistent basis.

HIGHLIGHTS: Christian Arroyo goes 4 for 5 with HR, double; Aramis Garcia HRs and doubles

---

Sacramento lost to Salt Lake City Bees (Angels), 7-4

Prior to the game an interview with Bobby Evans was circulated in which he said the Giants would love to see Christian Arroyo force their hand to accelerate his timetable, but that they wouldn’t make such a decision based on two weeks. To which, Arroyo replied:

For the second consecutive night, Arroyo opened the scoring quickly with a 1st-inning two-run HR.

With that swing, Arroyo matched his 2016 HR total. Man, it’s great to be out of the Eastern League! But unlike Tuesday night, Arroyo wasn’t done with his path of destruction with that blow. He would pad his line with two perfectly placed dribblers down the 3b line for infield singles and in the 9th, drill an opposite field double to the gap. Four more hits; eight total bases; four RBIs for the night. Arroyo, who has hit in 21 consecutive games dating back to last season, now leads the PCL in average (.479), OBP (.510), and OPS (1.260) while coming in 3rd in SLG (.750). Quite an April.

And while the system’s best hitting prospect was putting runs up on the board, the system’s best pitching prospect was piling up zeros on the Bees line score.

Tyler Beede bounced back from his tough second start to deliver 6.2 shutout innings. Interestingly, Beede’s two home starts this year have produced 1 ER in 11.2 IP while in his one road start he allowed 6 ER in 4 IP. Will he repeat his 2016 love of home cooking in his splits with Sacramento?

Beede’s peripherals aren’t looking terribly shiny yet this year (10 Ks, 7BBs in 16.2 IP) but he certainly kept the Bees off the fat part of the bat, allowing just three singles in the game. He established the fastball to get ahead in counts, used all of his repertoire, mixed pitches well, and kept the Bees off balance throughout.

Tyler left with a tidy 3-0 lead with two outs in the 7th after hitting his pitch count at 93 pitches. So that should be a nice tidy game story: system’s best prospects team up for nice, clean victory.

Instead what happened? Bullpen go boom. Roberto Gomez, Josh Osich, and Kraig Sitton teamed up for a truly miserable 8th inning in which they allowed 6 runs to score. Four of those were put on base via the walk, two by Osich. Osich faced five batters in this game and the only one he managed to retire gave himself up willingly with a Sac Bunt. The Bees Eric Young, Jr. continued to be a thorn for the RiverCats as he got two hits in the big inning: a leadoff single to get things started and a three-run double that put the exclamation mark on the rally and delivered the Bees the lead.

Just a brutal loss for the suddenly spiraling RiverCats. But Arroyo’s magic wandoo and Beede’s strong arm made it a win from a prospect viewing standpoint at least.

---

Richmond beat the Bowie BaySox (Orioles), 4-2

The Squirrels have a pretty reliable recipe for victory when they can make it work: get big hits from Miguel Gomez and Chris Shaw in the middle of the order and get the game to the back of their bullpen. Both elements came together yesterday and the recipe turned out as well as ever.

Shaw and Gomez collectively reached base five times, scored two runs and knocked two in. Both picked up doubles, with Gomez’ being the big hit of the game. In a 2-2 tie in the top of the 8th, Miguel doubled in two runs to provide the winning margin.

Shaw is currently 10th in the EL in SLG and 11th in OPS. (non-Giants related note: the Blue Jays Anthony Alford is on fire; like Arroyo he’s flirting with .500 early on and posting a 1.200 OPS which is really something in New Hampshire in the EL).

Matt Lujan gave up solo runs in the 1st and 3rd but held the line their and nearly gave the Squirrels a quality start. He got it to the troika of Snelten/Cyr/Moronta and the stout back of the pen took the game home. Together they provided 3.1 IP of scoreless relief, striking out 5 and allowing just two baserunners.

Moronta continues to be close to perfect with 11 Ks and 0 BBs in 6 scoreless innings. He’s allowed two of the 21 batters he’s faced to reach base. If they can deliver ties or leads to this group with a little more consistency this team could get on a roll. The challenge is that outside the Bednar/Gomez/Shaw portion of the lineup, offense is a little tough to come by in this lineup.

---

San Jose lost to Visalia Rawhide (Diamondbacks), 9-3 in Game 1 (7 inn)

San Jose lost to Visalia Rawhide (Diamondbacks), 3-0 in Gm 2 (7 inn)

Pop Quiz, Mr. Slatton: It’s the first inning of a double-header. What do you do to get the crowd into the game?

HS: Uh, I don’t know.... maybe give up 7 runs and never make it out of the 1st?

ML: No! NOOOOOOO! That is NOT the correct answer here, Mr. Slatton!

A disaster start by converted reliever Heath Slatton seemed to suck all the life out of the Giants as they went down quietly in both halves of their first double-header, suffering their first two game losing streak, and in the nightcap, their first shutout of the year. Slatton allowed seven of the nine batters he faced to reach base, including two walks and two doubles in the stretch, and he also uncorked two WP before he was done. A Dusty Baker special early on (Sac Bunt after the first two batters of the game reached base) gave Slatton one of the two outs he was able to achieve.

After that huge first frame, the league’s leading offense seemed to sleep walk through their 14 at bats. They collected only 9 hits in the entire double header, and two of those came from rehabbing major leaguers Mike Morse and Mac Williamson who each went 1 for 3 with clean lined singles.

The only San Jose batters to commit themselves well on the night were Jalen Miller, who went 3 for 7 on the night (which was nice to see after a cold spell for the leadoff hitter), and the night-quite-as-scorchingly-hot-as-Christian-Arroyo-but-darn-close Aramis Garica.

Garcia continues to make a strong early season push for promotion. Playing only in game 1, the hot hitting Catcher connected on his league leading 4th HR and laced a double in the 6th which set up the last Giants’ run of the double header. His HR was a no doubter on the first pitch he saw in the 4th, a beauty of a shot that Garcia just had to admire a little bit, and which inspired Mike Morse to double helmet tap him!

There were also a couple of excellent relief appearances during the course of the night. Dusten Knight, the 26 year old with the power curve, threw a perfect 3.2 IP to end the opener which included 4 Ks. So far the RHP is enjoying his second trip to the Cal League more than the first, as he sports an 0.87 ERA (it was over 5.00 last year) and has 12 Ks/0 BBs in 10.1 IP. And in the nightcap, Caleb Simpson took a wild ride through his 1.1 innings with 3 BBs but 4 Ks. The hard throwing righty has been an adventure so far this year with 16 Ks, 9 BBs, 1 HB, and 1 HR in his 7.1 innings of work.

Other than that, it was the kind of night that just made you want to go yell at someone, right Todd?

---

Augusta beat Charleston RiverDogs (Yankees), 5-3
winning their three game series, 2-1

Look at the Greenjackets go! That’s two in a row? Do you know what this could mean?

Yes, a winning streak! As Lou says, it has happened before!

Kelvin Beltre picked up two more hits and scored two runs to help propel the offense. Beltre has back to back multi-hit games and a modest four game hitting streak going, during which he’s only struck out twice (while walking three times)! Keep it up Kelvin! Starting to make some adjustments to Sally pitching maybe? To complete his night, Beltre also mixed in his first SB of the season.

Leadoff hitter Anthony Marks picked up his 5th SB of the year and also knocked in two runs with a soft single to get them on the board in the 2nd and a Sac Fly which provided the ultimate winning margin in the 4th.

In all the Augusta lineup had one of their best days of the year, logging 10 hits (including XBH from Catcher Skyler Ewing and newcomer Frandy de la Rosa) and 3 walks while striking out just 5 times. Every member of the lineup reached base safely at least one, and everybody but Brandon Van Horn recorded a hit. They did go 2 for 11 with RISP, but there was enough traffic on the bases throughout to make it work.

Burly RHP (seems like the Giants have a few of those!) DJ Myers fanned 6 over 4 somewhat laborious innings. The Giants are still stretching Myers out so he was pulled after amassing 66 pitches. And the bullpen was able to hang onto the lead, allowing just 1 ER over their five innings. They even got two perfect innings out of the 6’8” RHP Nolan Riggs who has been struggling through a rough opening to the year. Riggs had allowed runs in four of his five appearances, allowing 7 ER in 5.2 IP. Prior to last night, the only appearance in which he hadn’t allowed a run was an outing in which he threw just one pitch. But last night the big right-hander was perfect, retiring all six batters he faced.

Now it’s back on the road for newly winning Jackets as they head to Greensboro tonight to take on the Grasshoppers (Marlins).

---

Today’s Scheduled Starters:
Sacramento: Joan Gregorio vs. Alex Blackford
Richmond: Andrew Suarez vs. David Hess
San Jose: Jake McCasland vs. Jose Almonte
Augusta: Matt Solter vs. Dylan Lee

San Jose’s offense tries to regroup vs Arizona’s #18 prospect and avoid losing their bazilliontieth consecutive series vs. Visalia, while Joan Gregorio puts his 1.74 ERA on the line against Salt Lake City. Andrew Suarez is coming off an 8 K appearance last time out and looks to build some consistency into his AA resumé.

Until tomorrow, here’s hoping we all get to see a lot more of this soon: