SF Giants Minor Lines 7/14/17

No cold open, let’s hit the lines!

HIGHLIGHTS: Matt Winn went 3 for 4 with two doubles; Skyler Ewing homered for the 4th time in past 6 games.

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Sacramento won at Salt Lake Bees (Angels), 6-4

Sacramento strung together two walks and four hits into a six-run rally in the 4th inning that held up for the victory. Mac Williamson started it off with a one-out walk and SB and each of the next six batters reached base, moving the line and running up the score. The RiverCats would have just two hits outside that inning in the game. Originally the official scorer ruled that the Bees had made three errors in the inning (making 5 of the 6 runs unearned) but ultimately only one of them stayed on the books with the other two converting to singles.

It would be nice to be able to issue a full-throated “Tyler Beede was great!” review of one of his starts, but somehow that never quite seems to be the case. He was solid, he was better, and he was one controversial away from having a pretty strong line with 4 Ks/1BB in 5 IP. But he also labored through 5 innings in 92 pitches and was once again fairly hittable. He frequently fell behind hitters as he struggled to command any of his pitches. As a result, we see a lot of the hard contact problems that have plagued Beede all year as he surrendered five doubles in this game, a continuation of the wealth of XBH he’s allowed this year.

Still he could have walked away from the start allowing just 1 run had it not been for a very strange call.

Not a lot to go on but from the replay it would certainly appear that this ball was a line drive and not a grounder and thus should have been called based on where it landed, not where it went over 3b. And from the play by play it certainly sounds like the ball fairly clearly landed foul. Tough break for sure. This play was followed by a WP and a run scoring single so it’s far from certain that Beede would have wormed out of the jam regardless.

It’s not surprising that all this took place in the 5th inning. That’s been Beede’s iceburg all year. After last night’s game Beede has an ERA in the 5th over 9.00 as he seems to get into deep trouble in that 2nd/3rd time through the order that he can’t quite power through. That leads to another issue he’s had in the PCL: trouble going deep in games. This marks the 8th time in 18 starts this year that he’s gone 5 innings or fewer.

But let’s leave Tyler on a happy note. Here he is punching out former Angels #1 prospect Caleb Cowart, one of two times he got Cowart on strikes:

The bullpen locked things down after Beede’s departure, with DJ Snelten, Tyler Rogers, and Derek Law covering 4 scoreless innings. Taken together they allowed just three runners to reach base over the back half of the game while striking out four. Snelten has a 9.1 inning scoreless streak going, with 11 Ks over that stretch (2 BB, 5 hits).

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Richmond beat Harrisburg Senators (Nationals), 4-3

Ah the old walk-off walk! Dan Carbonell was the third walk of the 9th inning (one of them intentional), driving (or pushing) in the game winning run with two outs. Prior to that all of Richmond’s offense had come on one swing of the bat from veteran Myles Schroder way back in the first inning. Schroder, the third batter of the game for the Squirrels, gave them a 3-0 lead with his 2nd HR of the year following singles from Slade Heathcott and CJ Hinojosa.

That was one of just two extra base hits the Squirrels had (Jeff Arnold’s double the other) in the game.

Starter Tyler Herb also allowed a first inning HR, but it was just a solo. He allowed single runs in three separate innings. Seth Rosin and Jarrett Martin followed him with three near perfect innings (just one walk allowed), striking out 5 batters between them. None of the three Richmond pitchers used in the game were with the organization six weeks ago. Martin is the “Giants veteran” of the group having been signed way back on June 3rd.

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San Jose lost at Rancho Cucamonga Quakes (Dodgers), 7-2

A whole mess of roster moves for San Jose to catch up on. Let’s see, Matt Winn and David Owens came back from Sacramento. Heath Slatton, Connor Kaden and Connor Sabanosh came up from Salem-Keizer (Slatton started the year in San Jose’s rotation and has since made a good tour of the system). And the best news of all:

Get Steven Duggar is, indeed, an important element for the organization for the second half of the year. Leg issues are scary for a young CF, especially lingering ones like this has been for Duggar in his lost half season.

But to the game where, sigh, the mystery that is Jake McCasland continued on its course, as he Charlie Brown’d his way through 5.2 innings of extremely loud and incredibly close contact. He allowed five hits including a HR and triple just in the 6th inning alone when the gas tank seemed to hit empty. For whatever reason McCasland is really struggling to translate stuff into success this year.

Matt Winn, who did nothing but hit in Sacramento, kept it up on returning to the Cal league, going 3 for 4 with two doubles and one of the San Jose’s two RBIs. Ryan Howard and Bryan Reynolds had two hits apiece.

San Jose employed two hard-throwing wild men at the end of the game in Caleb Simpson and Michael Cederoth and they showed their best side in this one, striking out 5 over the final 2.1 innings while walking just 1. Cederoth, who was a 3rd rounder for the Twins just three years ago is a huge arm. He’s struck out 19 and walked 11 so far in 15 innings for the Giants. Simpson, meanwhile, off essentially three seasons lost to various injuries is running up incredible K numbers in the Cal, with 61 strikeouts now in 39.1 innings, but also 30 walks.

You can catch up on all of Joe Ritzo’s pregame interviews which are all collected at this handy resource:

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Augusta lost at West Virginia Power (Pirates), 7-6
winning their three game series, 1-2

And the bad side of a walk off win. SS Brandon Van Horn cranked up the drama by hitting a game tying two-run HR in the top of the 9th, but Nolan Riggs couldn’t send it to extras, surrendering a double and a two-out game losing single.

Van Horn’s HR, his 3rd of the year, was the 4th of the game for the Greenjackets, which I’m just going to assume is their biggest power output of the year without even checking (they have just 45 total homers as a team this year). One of those was Skyler Ewing’s 7th of the year. This was Ewing’s 4th HR in his last six games (Hey Kevin, I might have located your Hitter of the Week) as the big guy from Rice is suddenly finding something in his third shot at the Sally. If the Catcher conversion sticks (Ewing was Catching again yesterday) there’s no telling if he can manage to Eli Whiteside his way into a career someday. The bar for major league catching right now is shockingly low. BA’s John Manual and JJ Cooper were mentioning just the other day that major league team’s are currently filled with both starting and bench catchers who were never considered to be prospects on their way up. Who knows?

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Salem-Keizer lost to Boise Hawks (Rockies), 3-2
losing their three game series, 1-2

The continuing tale of Cornell University’s own Peter Lannoo almost had another triumphant chapter! But not quite. The unheralded 28th rounder picked up another 3 strikeouts — that’s 11 now in 6 innings — but just the second hit he’s allowed as a pro left the yard in the top of the 9th to provide the winning margin for the Hawks, keeping them in a tenuous tie for the division lead. Lannoo’s still rocking a pretty impressive 50% K rate a couple weeks into his pro career. Keep that up, Peter, and you’ll go places!

It was an oddly quiet night for the Volcanoes’ offense, as they had just six hits, all of them singles. Manuel Geraldo picked up two hits and an RBI, nearly leap frogging over Malique Ziegler for the team lead in batting average (.343. to .342). However, suddenly and shockingly neither are leading the league anymore as Vancouver Catcher Riley Adams reached a qualifying number of plate appearances and his .382 average blows both of the Volcanoes away. They need Adams to play a bit more sporadically or less effectively to reassert the Salem-Keizer stranglehold on the top of the leaderboard. Geraldo also failed in his attempt to jump into the league lead in SB, getting caught for his 5th time this year. One of those days.

I should probably spend more time here talking about Jose Marte. His numbers aren’t impressive, but the 21 year old RHP has been hand a huge challenge this year. It’s worth remembering that he was in the same signing class with guys like Jorge Labrador and Willian Suarez (both still working the bullpen in the DSL) and Camilo Doval (in the AZL). Though he’s older than those guys, he’s similarly inexperienced and unrefined, so taking on the college heavy NWL is a huge challenge assignment. So far he’s been competitive, but plagued by big control issues (14 Ks, 19 walks). We have reports of him being up to 95 in Instructs with an interesting curve. So it’s worth remembering that Melvin Adon walked 34 in 67 innings at this same level last year with a 5.48 ERA.

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DSL Giants beat the DSL Padres, 14-1

The Giants piled up 14 hits along with 4 walks in this rout. Alexander Canario was again the catalyst for the Giants, reaching base four times and finishing a HR short of a cycle. Franklin Labour walked, singled, and homered and also stole a base. It was Labour’s 3rd HR of the year; he’s the only player on the team other than Canario who has more than 1. A third of the way through the campaign, the 19 year old Labour is showing marked improvements over his first DSL season across the board. His OPS is literally .300 points higher! (.637 to .934). In 100 PA he’s posting a strong slash line of .317/.422/.512 and he’s made big strides in his plate discipline. Last year Labour struck out about twice as often as he walked (38 to 20) while this year he’s keeping the ratio at an excellent 1:1 level with 13 walks and 10 Ks. Good work, Franklin!

And hey, I bet you think I’ve forgotten all about my tease at the top! Well I haven’t. The answer to my queery (did someone throw 100 mph yesterday) is: MAYBE (but we have no way of knowing)! But MAYBE!

21 year old Yovanny Moronta made his first professional start, after five brief relief appearances in June that totaled up to just 0.2 IP. Have you mentally turned the page yet? What if I told you that Moronta was throwing triple digits in camp this winter? Moronta is perhaps an even less refined version of Melvin Adon, who was also signed at the advanced age of 20. Prior to this start, Moronta had managed to get just two outs in five appearances, walking 7 and hitting 2 (which, ouch!) while striking out just 1.

But in his debut as a starter, Moronta held up well, going 5 full innings and striking out 5 while allowing just 1 run. He did walk 4, giving him now 11 walks in 5.2 IP which could use some improving on. Still, a new 100 mph arm working his way into a starting role? One of the more exciting developments of the year for the DSL team.

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Today’s Scheduled Starters:
Sacramento: Chris Stratton vs. Daniel Wright
Richmond: Sam Coonrod vs. John Simms
San Jose: Conner Menez vs. yadier Alvarez
Augusta: Dom Mazza vs. Riley Pint
Salem-Keizer: Julio Benitez vs. Tai Tiedemann
AZL: Jake Greenwalt (?)
DSL: Luis Moreno or Aneudy Acosta?

The A ball hitters get to measure their ability to catch up to velocity tonight as San Jose and Augusta face off against two of the premium “stuff” guys in the entire minor leagues. San Jose takes on Yadier Alvarez fresh off (a not particularly impressive appearance at) the Futures Game while Augusta goes against the 4th overall pick in the 2016 draft, 100 mph (and cartoon curveball) throwing Riley Pint. Good luck, guys! However well they match up against the hard stuff, Kevin will have it here tomorrow with the Prospect Roundup. See you next week, all!