SF Giants Minor Lines 8/9/17: Steven Duggar has 4 hits

Let’s start it off with power. Why? Because I like power!

That is one beautiful 0-2 swing if I have to say so myself. By the way, the pitch before that Shaw hit a ball out just foul down the left field line. All. Fields. Power.

HIGHLIGHTS: Chris Shaw extended hit streak with 19th HR; Steven Duggar had four hits w HR; Garrett Williams struck out 8 in six shutout innings.

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Sacramento lost at Iowas Cubs, 7-3

Casey Kelly didn’t get much help trying to exact revenge on the team that cut him last month. A Juniel Querecuto error led to two unearned runs on his ledger. And the offense was mostly absent as Sacramento managed just five hits in the game.

Two of those hits did leave the building. Chris Shaw hit his 13th in the PCL (19th overall) and Trevor Brown hit his 1st (what a year it’s been for the .158 hitting former Buster backup.

Shaw’s blast was 13 for 13 as his 13th HR pushed his hit streak out to 13 games — which is a team high for the year — one more than Christian Arroyo (miss you Xian!). Shaw’s now leading the organization in HRs and he has 49 XBH on the year. Despite a high K rate in AAA, Shaw has maintained a surprisingly high batting average this year (.295 overall and .292 in the PCL) while showing off easy power to all fields (.227 Iso). Still, while watching Ryder Jones’ adjustment process to the majors, it’s worth remembering that Jones in the PCL this year has a walk rate twice as high as Shaw’s, a K rate 11% lower, and an Iso 50 points higher. In other words, I’m here to report that Chris Shaw is having an excellent year and still has things to work on. That said, some of that work is going to happen in the majors.

Steve Okert hadn’t allowed a run in AAA since June 16 but he gave up a quick two yesterday, with a single and a HR to the first two batters he faced. Three of the five batters he faced reached base (including a walk) but he helped himself get through it by picking a runner off 1b to end his day.

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Richmond lost to Portland Sea Dogs (Red Sox), 9-4

How many HRs did I say Michael Chavis had hit against the Squirrels this week? Whatever, it’s one more now as he followed a leadoff walk in the 4th with his 29th HR of the year, launching a 4-run rally. Portland would never seriously be threatened again, leading 8-1 at one point in the 6th inning.

One day after being no-hit through seven innings, Richmond once again failed to collect a hit the first time through the order. Down 4-0 in the 4th they finally got something going when CJ Hinojosa hustled his way to his 12th double of the year.

Aramis Garcia brought him home with a single — and in doing so collecting his first AA RBI. Home Runs from Caleb Gindl (3) and Dylan Davis (7) provided the rest of the offense, but it was far too little too late. Richmond’s been playing good ball lately, but Portland has really had their number in these home and home series. Good riddance to them after tomorrow.

Sam Coonrod’s still a work in progress with this whole “reliever” thing. Yesterday was his third relief appearance and thus far he’s allowed three runs on five hits and two walks. Coonrod as a starter had a decided proclivity towards 1st inning runs before settling down so it figures this will take some adjustment in regimen and attitude before he figures out how to take to the role. It’s worth remembering that Kyle Crick took a couple of tries to figure out the new role.

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San Jose won at Stockton Ports (A’s), 12-5

Hey, good friend Conner Penfold was on hand for the game which means you can head over to his site to see some fantastic video soon. For now we just get the field reports. The San Jose hitters apparently took notice of the favorable hitting conditions as well and they said a hearty “YES, PLEASE!”

The Giants routed Stockton starter Brandon Butler with a 7-run 2nd inning that staked them to a 10-0 lead before the game was nine outs old. Every San Jose starter had at least one hit as they bashed out 19 hits as a team.

The leader of the pack was RF Steven Duggar who had a four hit game including that leadoff HR. Dillon Dobson homered for the second straight day (8 of his 14 HRs this year have come against the Ports). And as we heard, Jalen Miller hit a double that actually was over the fence for a moment.

Pretty good day for hitting! At least, the Giants though so. Over in the other dugout, they were not enjoying things quite so much.

Garrett Williams looked to follow up on his 10 K gem in his Cal league debut, and for the most part he succeeded. Williams still hasn’t allowed a run in the Cal League, and he picked up 8 more Ks to give him some eye-popping Cal League totals (18 Ks, 5 BBs, 0 Rs in 12 innings). From field level, it does sound like Garrett was fighting himself a bit though:

Of course, the long innings while the Giants were batting around like a team of Bugs Bunnies no doubt didn’t help. Williams got it in cruise control by the end though.

That started a stretch in which he retired his final 9 batters of the night, including 6 of his strikeouts. (Note to self: let’s start mentally preparing for Jonathan Sanchez Experience, v. 3). The stuff can be dominant and the control is definitely improving. With just a handful of starts left in the year I think we can declare Williams to be one of the genuine good stories of the system for 2017. This was a big step forward for the Texan and helps in an area of exteme need for the Giants. Is Williams the best starting pitcher development story of the year? Suarez I guess is the only real competition to the title.

Duggar meanwhile, is now hitting .278/.370/.532 in 20 games with the Giants. He’s still playing RF every night, which gives me pause when people want to circle in him as a Giants’ CF in 2018. At the end of the day, his CF experience since high school is mostly limited to 60 games in Richmond last year. Another interesting note about Steven: he’s now hit 13 HRs in 90 games with San Jose as a pro, and 2 HRs in 120 games everywhere else.

It’s an open question how long the Giants will leave Duggar in San Jose as the season dwindles down. Will they want to get him a few at bats in AAA before 2017 is over? Or would they prefer he help San Jose make a late season push for the Cal League playoffs?

Speaking of which:

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Augusta beat Rome Braves, 4-1
winning their three game series, 2-1

If nothing else, Dom Mazza has pretty well ensured he’ll get to be a significant part of San Jose’s 2018 pitching staff. Mazza continued to be a very steady presence in the Augusta rotation, going 5.1 efficient innings. Mazza had a shutout going until his final batter of the night — his final two batters, in fact, who hit successive doubles of the left-hander. But he left with a 3-1 lead and a 8 strikeouts on the night without a walk. Making batters hit their way on has been Mazza’s calling card this year as he’s issued just 15 unintentional free passes, while striking out 85. He figures to take the Mark Reyes “veteran presence” role in San Jose next year and enjoy a little home cooking.

The Greenjackets offense got two hits apiece from Jean Angomas, Skyler Ewing, and Sandro Fabian in scratching out four runs. Angomas and Ewing opened up the 4th with a triple and double respectively which led to a two-run rally and a 3-0 lead.

Fabian was in the midst of all three Augusta rallies. He singled as the middle link in the chain in their first scoring rally, brought in their third run with a double-play grounder, and knocked in their final run with an RBI single. Fabian leads the Greenjackets with 48 RBIs and is second on the team in runs with 38 (despite having hit 7th for much of the last two months).

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Salem-Keizer won at Hillsboro Hops (Diamondbacks), 4-3

Bryce Johnson and Logan Baldwin continue to be a dynamic duo at the top of the order, as they combined for four hits to help pace the Volcanoes to a taut 4-3 win. The speedy duo got Salem-Keizer going quickly with back to back bunt singles to open the game up. That led to the first big opportunity of the game: a bases loaded, no out situation in the 1st inning. But the situation fizzled out when Ryan Kirby roped a ball into an ill-fortuned double play.

That’s the wrong direction, Logan! First step’s gotta go the other way. However, because baseball is stupid, Kirby would later win the game driving in a run on a groundout.

But the story of this game was the Volanoes bullpen. After starter Peter Lannoo lasted just 3 innings, the trio of Aaron Phillips, Garrett Cave, and John Russell proceeded to throw six innings of shutout ball on just two hits, while striking out 11 Hops.

Garrett Cave, the imposing 4th round pick for the Giants, showed both the electricity and the wildness in his big right arm. Entering a 3-3 game in the 7th inning, Cave walked the first two batters he faced (and threw away a pickoff attempt in between). And he’d also mix in a HB to load the bases. But he struck his way out of the jam, ultimately striking out four. That’s now 27 Ks in 17 pro innings. Let’s watch him go up against one of the finest college hitters in the nation this year, the #7 overall pick Pavin Smith:

That’s some serious life! I am hoping that as Cave progresses through the minors he learns to speed up the process a bit though. You can hear the exasperation in the Hillsboro announcer’s voice there as he took forever peering in for the sign. I supsect the internal monologue there was something like this: “DUDE! What sign are you looking for? You’ve only got one pitch! THROW IT!”

Malique Ziegler’s offensive woes continued with another 0 fer night, but he contributed to the win with a crucial defensive play to end the 4th.

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AZL Giants beat AZL D-backs, 10-5

Scary start to this game as Heliot Ramos got hit on the hand with a fastball to open the game (stop hitting our players on the hand with pitches!). After a visit with the trainer, Heliot stayed in the game however, and picked up his 8th SB of the year on the very next pitch. That started off one of the better games for Ramos lately as he reached base three times (HBP, single, walk) and more importantly, didn’t strike out. After having his 16 game hitting streak broken, Ramos had gone just 1 for 17 with 9 Ks over his past six games so it was nice to see him have a productive outing again. The .977 OPS and .589 SLG are still 4th best in the league but it would be nice to see productive little flurry from Heliot before getting a well deserved end of season rest.

It was a fun day for the whole lineup. Everybody reached base at least once and everybody but SS Jose Rivero recorded at least one hit. Jacob Gonzalez doubled in a first inning run and later walked. And 19 year old Colombian Catcher hit his first HR of the year. Angulo’s old running mate Mecky Coronado played in just his second game of the year (and first since June 25) and went 2 for 3 with a double. Much fun was had by all.

On the pitching side, Camilo Doval continued his breakout performance, striking out 4 of the 9 batters he faced. Doval has struck out 29 of the 79 batters he’s faced this season, and that’s been on an upswing lately as 23 of those have come in just his past five games covering just 13 innings of work.

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DSL Giants beat the DSL Reds, 4-3

Ok, got my Gregory Santos game! Not sure what to do with it though. Santos surrendered the first two HRs of his career, and also unleashed three WPs in his 4.2 innings. But aside from the two solo HRs he certainly didn’t pitch badly. Santos once again piled up groundballs, with nine ground outs while picking up three Ks. Not sure what to make of the 17 year old but I’m keeping my eye out for him at Spring Training camp next year.

Since a three game stretch in mid July (7/13, 14, 17) when Alexander Canario hit four doubles and two triples, he’d had just two extra base hits in 57 at bats when he came to the plate in the bottom of the 8th yesterday. But his line-drive double kicked off a three-run rally that propelled the DSL Giants to the come from behind win. Following Canario’s double, Franklin Labour tripled and two batters later the suddenly resurgent (or possibly, just “surgent”) Ghordy Santos singled in the game winner.

That’s three bats that are in very different places as they head down the 2017 stretch. Canario opened the year as the biggest offensive force on the team and a power/speed threat. But still just barely 17 and three months, the youngster appears to be wearing down as he goes through his pro debut. Canario’s last HR (his 5th) came all the way back on June 30 and his OPS has dropped about 70 points over the last three weeks.

Santos has had the opposite year. He came into the year a hotly anticipated top prospect and has spent much of the summer disappointing. But he’s picked it up the last couple of weeks (and really, when you’re batting .145 what can you do other than go up?) hitting .316/.409/.421 over his last 11 games while stealing 5 bases. The quick-twitch SS has nearly a 50% h/XBH ratio on the year with 7 doubles, 2 triples and a HR, which is pretty good for a kid whose defense was ahead of his bat coming into his pro debut.

Franklin Labour, as noted last Saturday, is just out of his gourd right now. Things have definitely clicked into place for the 19 year old OF/1b in his second DSL campaign. Labour’s 2 for 4 day gave him five consecutive two-hit games and seven multi-hit games in his last eight contests. He’s posted a 1.002 OPS since July 14th and his OPS for the season has now climbed up to .936, 5th best in the DSL. And just for some gravy, he’s done a quality job controlling the strike zone this year as well with 21 BBs and 24 Ks in his 180 PAs. Last year, in 226 PA Labour had 21 BBs and 38 Ks.

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Today’s Scheduled Starters:
Sacramento: Roberto Gomez vs. Jen-Ho Tseng
Richmond: Cory Taylor vs Dedgar Jimenez
San Jose: Jake McCasland vs. TBD
Augusta: TBD vs. Breiling Eusebio
Salem-Keizer: Jose Marte vs. Brian Shaffer
AZL: Deiyerbert Bolivar
DSL: Marco Gonzalez

Fabian and Beltre and crew get to test themselves vs. one of the low-level pop up stars of the 2017 season, Rockies left-hander Breiling Eusebio, while the RiverCats get a former top 10 Cubs prospect whose star has dimmed the last couple of years in another matinee in Iowa.