SF Giants Minor Lines 5/10/17: Chris Shaw keeps on hitting

Today’s the third straight short slate for Minor Lines this week, as everybody in the system’s gotten off days. So let’s start off by taking a moment to check in on an old friend, who’s very slowly making his way through the development chain:

Good for Luis! (even though that trade really kind of stinks/stank/stunk).

HIGHLIGHTS: Sam Coonrod had 8 Ks; Chris Shaw picks up two more hits; DJ Myers struck out 6 in 7 IP.

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Sacramento had a scheduled off day

But here, enjoy this interview with Ryder Jones about playing the OF.

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Richmond lost to Altoona Curve (Pirates), 10-3
winning their three game series, 2-1

Hey, speaking of playing the OF, Chris Shaw played LF yesterday for the 9th time this year, and just the second time he’d headed out to the grass for back to back games. While he was at it, he did some hitting:

Glaser provided a lot of content for Giants’ fans after the game and a lot of it is Shaw-centric. Here he is with some quick video thoughts on Shaw, Suarez, and Coonrod (in addition to Altoona’s Kevin Newman):

And here’s Glaser’s larger BA story on Shaw and the time he’s been seeing in LF of late. This story also includes a good amount of video clips of Shaw hitting, which is nice as Richmond’s video feed has a pronounced tendency to have a “stop motion” claymation feel to it sometimes. I was going to clip in the MiLBtv highlight of Shaw’s double, but its frankly a big worthless, however both the double and the later single are included in Glaser’s video.

The whole picture is pretty promising. So I suppose we’re setting up a question here with the dueling “guess who’s getting time in LF lately” stories. Who gets to the LF job first: Jones or Shaw? And who stays there the longest?

While the story with Shaw seems to be all promising of late, Sam Coonrod’s day yesterday was much more Jekyll and Hyde. The first inning was nearly all Hyde, beginning when he lost control of a fastball and drilled the Curve’s Kevin Newman in the head with a 94 MPH fastball. (It looks like Newman’s avoided serious damage though I suspect he’ll be treated carefully for concussion symptoms).

It seems reasonable to guess that that “visibly upset” emotions led to a loss of focus for Coonrod who was then pounded for back to back doubles and a three run HR within the next four batters. He ultimately struck out the side in the first, but surrounding a lot of hard contact.

However, he then collected himself and went on a solid streak for three innings, retiring 10 of the 12 batters, including five Ks. He was particularly effective going to his secondaries.

Depending on your definitions he was either throwing two slightly different breaking balls or varying the shape and speed of one enough to give two different looks. You can see what I mean in this strike out of Edwin Espinal where he gets Espinal to chase on the sharp slider in the dirt and then bends in a bigger breaker for strike three looking.

By the end of the 4th however, he was getting an elevated pitch count. In particular a fantastic 10 pitch At bat that catcher Tomas Morales threw at him in the end of the 4th probably took something out of him. He opened the 5th by once again hitting a batter (he also had a couple of curves that spun out of his hand and went high and headward during the game) and once again he seemed to lose focus. Allowing an easy SB without checking the runner, then WP him to 3rd. He walked the following batter before ending his day with his 8th K and 96 pitches in just 4.1 IP.

Christian Jones made Coonrod’s line look even messier when he allowed both inherited runners to score and three more of his own, blowing open a one-run game and leading the Curve to an easy win.

Before we leave, let’s dip into the Glaser well one more time for his previous day’s report on Slade Heathcott which also includes video and some notes on CJ Hinojosa.

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San Jose lost at Rancho Cucamonga (Dodgers), 8-2

The San Jose (and one SF) Giants’ hitters got to test themselves against rehabbing big leaguer Rich Hill yesterday, and they failed the test pretty spectacularly, as Hill threw 5 no-hit innings against them. They did manage to draw three walks off him though and two HB. Take THAT, Hill!

After Hill came the Dodgers’ best remaining prospect in the minors, Yadier Alvarez, and the Giants did manage to do a little more with him, touching the young righty up for two runs on five hits and two walks (while striking out 3 times). Two of those hits came from Denard Span, who lined two clean singles and is now 2 for 4 in his rehab. Span is likely to be pressed back into action ASAP at this point.

Ryan Howard also picked up two hits after a couple hitless games in the wake of his 14 game hitting streak. But on the whole the lineup looked a bit feckless. They also had some quality defense come at their expense.

Big league pitchers know what they’re doing against A ball hitters, of course. Still, it would be nice to see just a little more life than this:

San Jose has been getting embarrassed by the Dodgers’ Cal League affiliate so far this year. SJ is now 1-5 against Rancho Cucamonga and in those six games they’ve been outscored 40-13. My view would be that this isn’t an illusion either: there’s a serious talent gap in these two rosters, which I’m willing to say is not #goodfortherivalry. San Jose tries to avoid the sweep tonight.

One guy who is performing well for San Jose is hard throwing relief pitcher Caleb Simpson, who had missed nearly all of the previous four seasons. You can hear the litany of his long list of injuries, and how he’s dealt with those troubles in a moving interview you can listen to here (sorry, it’s looking like embedding clips from MiLB.com might not be possible anymore):

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Augusta lost to Kannapolis Intimidators (White Sox), 2-1 in 10 inn

Augusta’s lineup got a little enhanced veteran presence yesterday as Shawon Dunston, Jr. and Cristian Paulino both joined the team in a flurry of transactions that saw Cristoph Bono and Manuel Geraldo both hit the DL while Dunston, Paulino, and lefties Garrett Wiliams and Sandro Cabrera were both activated.

But despite the help, the offense couldn’t get much started in their return home. Dunston did have two doubles in the game, and scored the team’s lone run when Brandon Van Horn singled him home after the first of those. But that was all the support they could give starter DJ Myers who had a terrific outing, striking out 6 against 5 hits and a walk. His one mistake cost him when he allowed a leadoff triple in the 6th. On the next play, Intimidator Micker Adolfo grounded a ball to 3b Kevin Rivera who tried to cut the tying run down at the plate but instead threw the ball away. That would ultimately send the game to extras where Kannapolis won it with a walk, a bunt, and a double in the 10th.

After the enjoyable hitting environment of Greenville, it’s no doubt a shock to the system to return to Lake Olmstead, where runs come hard.

A couple of other transactions that are worth noting: both Anthony Marks and Tyler Brown are listed on the transactions page as having their “roster status changed” and both of their player pages currently list them as “suspended # days.” Not sure what that’s about.

Anyway, on to happier news, let’s enjoy looking at Reyes Moronta in an Augusta uni:

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Today’s Scheduled Starters:
Sacramento: TBD vs. Brent Suter
Richmond: Matt Lujan vs. David Hess
San Jose: Michael Connolly vs. Caleb Ferguson
Augusta: Matt Solter vs. Alec Hansen

Sacramento has a rare day game for the first game of their road trip in Colorado Springs (it’s rare that the day game comes at the beginning of the series, rather than on the travel day). While Richmond will once again be dodging rain drops in Bowie. San Jose tries to avoid a sweep versus the Quakes.

Hansen was at one point in time a candidate for the 1-1 pick of the 2016 draft, but his rough Junior year (in which he was dumped from Oklahoma’s weekend rotation for awhile) ended up dropping him to the White Sox in the 2nd round. But he’s looked quite good as a pro, flashing the plus stuff that he’s known for. He’ll represent a real challenge for the young (and old) Augusta bats.

Enjoy the games everyone! Sorry if I upset any of you by opening up with the Luis Castillo performance. Here, let me make it up to you!