SF Giants Minor Lines: 4/26/17: Sandro Fabian hits first 2 HRs

You may recall Giants #6 prospect Sandro Fabian from such feats as: saving Domenic Mazza’s perfect game Tuesday night with multiple fine defensive plays. A morning later Fabian decided to show off a different variety of his skillset. He’s been a doubles machine so far this year, but yesterday Sandro got that launch angle dialed in to go for the downs:

HIGHLIGHTS: Hunter Cole reached base four times; Sandro Fabian had four hits including 2 HRs, double; Tyler Brown had four hits including three doubles.

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Sacramento had a scheduled off day.
They travel to Tacoma to take on the Rainiers tonight.

Meanwhile, enjoy this week’s Minor League Photos of the Week, which leads with a Tim Federowicz action shot!

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Richmond lost to Bowie Baysox (Orioles), 13-2
splitting their two game series, 1-1

We have had inquiries on how the Dylan Davis 3b Experiment is going:

Let’s say the jury’s still out, shall we? Six errors and a PB certainly aren’t going to help any pitching staff and it’s a pretty toxic mix for a staff that itself is allowing a mind-numbing 21 hits(!) on the day. The bright side here I guess is that only 8 of the runs were earned. But, as bright side’s go that’s a bit on the dingy side.

Andrew Suarez has gotten off to a rough return to AA as it seems as if he’s pitching in traffic in every inning. Suarez has allowed 27 hits in four games this year (20.2 IP) and his WHIP is over 1.5 for the year. That’s a lot of base runners. As was the case today, he’s also been hurt by defensive lapses as he actually leads the Eastern League in unearned runs allowed (half of his 16 Runs allowed this year have been officially unearned).

To complete their awful trifecta, in addition to poor pitching and poor defense, the Squirrels also weren’t much with the bats in this game. They had an early 2-run rally (that gave them a short-lived lead) that centered around Hunter Cole’s double with a man on. The hero of Tuesday night’s game, Cole would go on to walk in his subsequent three PA, reaching base safely in all of his trips to the plate. For a guy who was posting a .277 OPS on April 18, it’s been a good week. He’s reached base in 11 of his last 26 PA with three doubles and five walks over that time as he stirs his way from the frosty depths of his slump. [ED NOTE: If only Richmond was headed back to Pennsylvania I was dying to drop a “Slouches towards Bethlehem” reference there. Curse you, schedule makers!)

The nice thing about Education Day games, is that when they’re real stinkers like this one, at least they’re over by 1 in the afternoon! And truthfully, it’s always worth noting after these morning games: professional baseball players don’t tend to be very crisp at 10:00 in the morning. Just the nature of the scheduling beast that these games are going to be somewhat flat.

So hats off to old friend Ryan Lollis who provided the real highlights of this game, throwing out runners at both 3b and home. A small touch of grace in a graceless game. Lolly’s sadly not actually in this clip, but think well of him when watching it nonetheless. And that’s old Richmond vet Eliezer Zambrano on the other end of this play.

The fans seemed satisfied with the day, anyway:

So ends a tough homestand that was cold and rainy from one end to the other and almost winless. But it did have it’s moment

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San Jose lost at Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, 3-2

Well, moral victory I suppose in that the Giants were at least in this game. Still they’re staring down the barrel of a four game sweep tonight (and possibly going up against Yadier Alvarez, though the starter is TBD as of now) if they don’t right the ship.

Rough series for Jalen Miller, who came to RC with a .306 average and .845 OPS and has seen those numbers fall to .267 and .729 in three games. But that’s a good reminder that it’s still April and the season’s stories for these kids aren’t near written yet.

Here’s a weird stat: Bryan Reynolds has had six 3-hit games this year. He has had only two other games in which he recorded any hits at all. That’s odd, isn’t it?

Matt Winn, who was seriously struggling in Richmond has come back to join a Giants’ team in desperate need of Catching depth and he provided an immediate shot in the arm, hitting a triple that led to San Jose’s first run. Their only other XBH in the game, Jonah Arenado’s double, led to their only other run. The conclusion: more XBH would be nice. If you want a silver lining though, they did get nice production from the bottom of the order in this game, with Johneshwy Fargas chipping in with two hits and an RBI. In fact, the 5-9 hitters had all but two of the team’s hits (Ryan Howard in the 2 spot had those other two).

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Augusta won at Lexington Legends (Royals), 10-3
sweeping their three game series, 3-0

We hope you have enjoyed your stay in Lexington! A resounding Yes calls up from the Augusta bus as it pulls out of town. Prior to Tuesday night’s game the Greenjackets had hit a combined 4 HRs on the year. Twenty-four hours and two games later they’d hit 10.

It’s sometimes difficult to get a great read on the hitters in Augusta as they play in a park that really stifles power hitters. But getting out to one of the nicer offensive environments in the league can do wonders to some folks’ stat lines.

The biggest beneficiary in this morning finale was, of course, Fabian, who had a huge day with four hits and five RBIs including his first two HRs of the year. He actually rounded the bases three different times in the game, as his double down the LF line resulted in the ol’ Little League HR as defensive hijinx of all kinds abounded. To complete the big day, Fabian also stole his first base of the year. If only he’d picked up an OF assist (he has three on the year) for the Toolsy Triple Crown!

It should be noted (as you’ll catch in some of the highlights) that this was a good day for hitting with the flags pointing straight out, still Fabian’s HR swings certainly looked the part.

Pay no attention to the announcer saying that was Ashford Fulmer. He got overly confused by the previous play on which a pop up to RF resulted in two runs scoring and the 3b having to leave with an injury. It was Fabian swatting HR #2 making it a blow out at 8-1. In the 9th, the Greenjackets offense, which has struggled so mightily this year, just piled it on smacking two more homers and a booming double off the CF wall in a matter of five pitches. The double came from Tyler Brown, who just returned from a lengthy DL stint yesterday and made up for lost time in this one. The double was his third of the game, amongst four hits in all.

So a final tally of Greenjackets who hit their first HR of the year in this series: Will Albertson, Sandro Fabian, Manuel Geraldo, Brandon Van Horn. Man, let’s play here more often!

I’ll admit that Geraldo’s swing looked a little less HR-esque than some of the others. But hey, some days the wind blows. You didn’t see it bothering starting pitcher DJ Myers any! Myers, who is shaping up (no pun intended!) to be this year’s version of Cory Taylor in the Augusta rotation, threw a dominant 7 innings, allowing just 2 hits while striking out 6. Myers really pounded the zone, throwing 56 of 75 pitches for strikes, keep his hard riding fastball on the corners. That’s how you take the wind out of the wind’s sails, DJ.

We’ll see if Augusta can keep up their new found hitting ability when they come back home to Lake Olmstead Stadium tonight.

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Today’s Scheduled Starters:
Sacramento: TBD vs. Dillon Overton
Richmond: Off Day
San Jose: Conner Menez vs. TBD
Augusta: Matt Solter vs Darwinzon Hernandez

Before we go, since we’re speaking about park effects on offense, enjoy this piece from Baseball America on park factors: it will include stadiums you’ve heard of!