SF Giants Minor Lines 8/11/17: Heliot Ramos goes deep again

I’ve been dealing with back spasms for a week and the damn Nationals made me stand on a cement concourse for three hours, waiting for an announcement on a game that had apparently been cancelled long earlier. I’m in a bad mood. Give me something good internet!

Sigh. Sometimes that’s the way she go.

HIGHLIGHTS: Shaun Anderson allowed 2 hits in 5.2 innings; Matt Winn had three hits including two doubles with a walk; Bryan Reynolds had three hits with a double; Heliot Ramos homered for 2nd straight day.

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Sacramento beat Salt Lake Bees, 5-3

Chris Shaw’s 14 game hit streak is over, after he went 0 for 4 in the first game back home. During his streak, Shaw hit .352 going 19 for 54 with five HRs and six doubles. Ironically, Shaw was the only RiverCat without a hit in last night’s victory (so why you talking about him? shout all the other players!).

Slade Heathcott played a crucial role in his first game in front of the home crowd at Raley Field. Heathcott hit a tie-breaking two-run single in the bottom of the 7th that held up for the winner.

Except for Shaw and Juniel Querecuto (who went 2 for 2) each member of the lineup had exactly one hit. Heathcott, Orlando Calixte, and Ryan Lollis each added a walk.

Reyes Moronta had a rough night, as all three of Salt Lake’s runs came while he was on the mound. Entering for starter Jose Flores with a man on first and one out, Moronta allowed three of the first four batters he faced to reach base via hit or walk.

That would put Sacramento behind 3-1 in the 6th but Moronta, Steven Okert, and Tyler Rogers pitched hitless ball the rest of the way and the RiverCats used their own three-run inning in the 7th to take the comeback. That rally had a lot of Beeswax gift-wrapping on it. It started when Salt Lake SS Nolan Fontana simply missed an easy pop up. Later in the inning with Heathcott at the plate, a PB gave the RiverCats a crucial 90 feet allowing his single to bring in an extra run.

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Richmond beat the Reading Fightin’ Phils 5-4

And speaking of comebacks.... the Flying Squirrels didn’t say much but they said it loud in this thrilling walk off win over the Fightin’ Phils.

Richmond entered the bottom of the 5th inning in what’s become a depressingly normal situation — they were down 3-0 and had been no-hit up to that point. But Jerry Sands opened the 5th by working a walk. Caleb Gindl singled for the team’s first hit. And their second one tied things up quickly ... and loudly!

The Squirrels then dozed back into their stupor, with just two base runners after that through the 6th, 7th, 8th, and into the 9th, while Reading scratched across a run to retake the lead.

With two outs and nobody on in the bottom of the 9th, Aramis Garcia put up a tremendous battle in working a walk.

Good eye there, Aramis! That set up Caleb Gindl to be the hero and he wasted no time heroicizing.

Two swings of the bat, five runs! While the Richmond pitchers allowed 11 hits and 14 baserunners overall, the Squirrels leveraged five hits and three walks into a winning five-run recipe. Homers: what a concept!

Sam Coonrod picked up the win with a scoreless 9th. Coonrod had to bear down after starting the inning with a bunt single and a seeing eye grounder. But he came back to strike out the next two batters and got out of the jam with a pop up.

Before we head on, I’ve mostly ignored this year’s edition of Baseball America’s “Best Tools”, their annual survey of each league’s managers and scouts for the standout players in their league. I’ve ignored it because, below the major league level (where the Giants did particularly well on the defense side), Giants’ prospects were notably missing from the survey results. With one exception! And that exception can be found herein:

Not the most sexy honor perhaps, but good to know Tyler Cyr is attracting attention from the guys watching him day in/day out.

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San Jose won at Modesto Nuts (Mariners), 6-2

Like Garrett Williams, Shaun Anderson is turning into quite an exciting 2nd half story for San Jose. The former UFlorida closer has been sensational since joining the Giants, allowing just 5 hits and 3 runs in his first three starts, while striking out 10 and walking just 1 in 13 IP. Though the Giants are limiting Anderson’s innings this year, with a great body for pitching and a solid repertoire, he could leap up the Giants’ prospect ranks if he sticks as a starter. Anderson’s 2018, when the Giants give him the full starter’s leash, figures to be one of the most interesting prospect stories of next year.

Anderson and friends had plenty of backing as the Giants’ offense pounded out 13 hits. Matt Winn led the attack, reaching base four times and picking up three hits including two doubles. Bryan Reynolds also had three hits, including his 21st double of the year.

After a lackluster April, Reynolds has been a model of consistency this year. Since May his batting averages by month: .340, .322, .337, .302 and his OPS by month: .854, .866, .837, .780. He can hit! (beat you, Kruk!).

After getting three nights off, Heath Quinn had one of his better nights in the last month. Quinn picked up two-run single and also walked twice. So better quality at bats anyway. Quinn’s 30% K rate has been a significant concern this year as his numbers have gone south.

And speaking of K rates, Steven Duggar picked up another hat trick last night. That’s the third of those in his last 10 games. Duggar’s struck out in a third of his PA with San Jose since returning to action. His K rate in AA last year was 18.5%. At this point, I think it’s fair to say we just aren’t going to see Steven Duggar at his best (hopefully even his normal) in 2017. Another major storyline for 2018 will be seeing if Steven can bounceback from this wasted year.

With the win over Modesto, amazingly enough the Giants find themselves in sole position of 1st place with 22 games left to play. With the sudden bolstering of the rotation, they could make a run at this thing. They’re still ten games under .500 for the year, so they’ll need to take the division. Ties and Wild Cards are not going to be their allies in this race.

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Augusta’s game in Asheville was suspended int he 1st inning (Rain)

They’ll pick it up and play a DH tonight (hopefully). The rain dampened the Greenjackets momentum from a big 1st inning, when they scored four runs on five consecutive hits. Sandro Fabian’s 25th double of the year culminated the uprising.

However, after Stephen Woods, Jr. struck out the first batter he saw the torrents came down and ended the night. It’s unfortunate they couldn’t have called it just a couple minutes sooner so Woods had a chance to come back today. After actually getting on the mound and facing a batter, I doubt he’ll have that chance, though possibly just going through his pre-game warmup would have been enough to skip him.

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Salem-Keizer won at Vancouver Canadians (Blue Jays), 6-2

Malique Ziegler was moved back up to the leadoff spot and he was so happy about it he went out and had his best game in weeks. Ziegler picked up two hits and a walk and hit his first HR since the 5th game of the year (3rd overall) in helping lead the Volcanoes to a win in the series opener.

Ziegler was joined by Logan Baldwin who is his own special brand of hot right now. Baldwin had his fourth 3-hit games of the last two weeks, scored a run, drove in a run and stole his 10th base of the year (though he was also CS for the 6th time). Since July 26, Baldwin is hitting an almost comical .523/.540/.773. The man has entered Mike Benjamin territory.

Jason Bahr threw a career high 81 pitches, going 5 full innings and allowing just 2 runs. Bahr also set a career high with 7 Ks, in fact he almost doubled his previous high (4). Over his last three starts the 5th rounder has allowed just 3 ER over 14.1 IP while striking out 15 batters and walking just 3. Bahr did a little starting this year for Central Florida but he did most of his great work for them as a sort of Chris Devenski-esque long/middle reliever.

Alejandro de la Rosa, who had some nice outings in the rotation at the start of the year, has moved to the bullpen of late and is doing well there. In two relief appearances de la Rosa has gone five shutout innings, striking out 6 while walking none.

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AZL Giants lost to the AZL Brewers, 7-5

You’re probably asking yourselves right about now: who the heck is Yoiber Marquina? Excellent question, fictional reader! Yoiber Marquina is, or was, a RH relief pitcher in the Indians’ system who spent last year in the Midwest League and, after being traded to the Yankees in May and assigned to the Charleston RiverDogs, has not made an appearance in 2017. Was this Yankees RH relief pitcher really playing CF for the AZL Giants last night? I’m guessing not. My instinct would be that Ismael Munguia was caddying for Heliot Ramos as normal on Ramos’ DH nights. However, if it was Marquina, there must be an interesting story behind it!

Heliot, meanwhile, apparently was reminded in the 9th inning of Thursday’s game how much fun it is to hit HRs, so he did it again in his first PA on Friday, going deep for the 5th time this year. Ramos also had a single later in the game. That’s back to back two-hit nights for the 17 year old who has his OPS back up over the 1.000 mark again. He’s collected at least one hit in 23 of his 29 pro games and had at least two hits in 12 of them. That’s multi-hit efforts in 40% of his games in his pro debut. For a kid who won’t turn 18 until next month. Nice going, kid. That’s announcing your presence with authority: position player style!

19 year old starter Jake Greenwalt left the game with one out in the 2nd inning in a rather concerning turn of events. It was the second consecutive start which Greenwalt left prematurely as he’d only faced 9 batters in his previous start as well. Seems like there could be a sore arm of some nature going on with the Windsor, CO youngster. He had been having a nice season thus far.

EDITOR’S NOTE: UPDATE

With Greenwalt out of the game, Sidney Duprey was hastily summoned and the left-hander had his worst outing since his brief days in the NWL. Duprey was hammered for eight hits and five runs in 3.1 innings, and in something of an anomaly, struck out just one batter.

Jacob Gonzalez took the night off, but he managed to make his dad proud anyway.

As I noted at the top, Bobby DeMuro of Baseball Census was at the game, taking in his third AZL Giants contest of the week, and he promises goodies for us later tonight:

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DSL Giants game was postponed due to rain (Stupid RAIN!)

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Today’s Scheduled Starters:
Sacramento: Andrew Suarez vs. Andrew Heaney
Richmond: Dan Slania vs. Jacob Waguespack; TBD vs Drew Anderson
San Jose: Conner Menez vs. Nathan Bannister
Augusta: Raffi Vizcaino vs. Erick Julio
Salem-Keizer: Stetson Woods vs. Dalton Rodriguez
AZL: Seth Corry
DSL: Norwith Gudino; Francis Pena

Huge slate of games today as Richmond, Augusta (essentially), and the DSL team all play double headers to make up rainouts (glad I’m taking my traditional Sunday off tomorrow!). There could be some super taxed bullpens needing to make roster changes come Sunday, especially in Augusta where the pen will need to pick up the entire first game (unless Vizcaino steps in with the “relief” appearance and they choose to go all pen for the 7 innings of the regularly scheduled game).

High drafted lefties highlight the day at the top (Suarez) and bottom (Corry) of the ladder, while interesting arms like Vizcaino, Woods, and Gudino fill in around the edges. Chris Shaw gets an excellent challenge in Sacramento, going up against rehabbing Angels LHP Andrew Heaney, on the comeback trail to the majors following TJ surgery last year.

And lastly, since I’ve had a Baseball America heavy Minor Lines today, let’s leave with one more BA feature, for all of you who are dreaming of the deferred compensation for this awful season. Remember we’re far far faaaaaar too far out to be thinking in terms of actual draft orders yet and many many changes will come in the next 10 months, but here’s an opening salvo of interesting names for you to dream on and salve wounds (wonder if it works on sore backs).