SF Giants Minor Lines 8/30/17: Shaun Anderson throws a gem

I’m thinking I should set Sandro Fabian’s August highlights to the Flight of the Valkyries.

HIGHLIGHTS: Nate Reed strikes out 11; Shaun Anderson allows 1 hit, 0 runs; Kelvin Beltre doubles, homers, steals bases; Franklin Van Gurp K’d 8 in 4 IP.

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Sacramento beat Las Vegas 51s (Mets), 6-1

Different day, same highlight!

Williamson didn’t homer at all through a miserable July in which he posted an unbelievable .418 OPS. But he’s got the home run swing going in August. That’s 5 now for the month and a solid slash line of .298/.359/.532 as he’s closing out a tough year. The big man is playing for a job somewhere.

Sacramento got big production from the bottom of the order as Ryan Lollis, Ali Castillo, and Junel Querecuto combined for 7 hits out of the 6-8 spots. And they had a fine bullpen night as four pitchers, starting with Kraig Sitton, combined to allow just four hits and one run against the PCL’s worst team, the 52-85 51s, who apparently aren’t literalists or they would have stopped winning a day earlier.

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Richmond beat Altoona Curve (Pirates), 6-1

Indy ballers represent!

Nate Reed, the 29 year old pride of Kutztown U had himself a career night, striking out 11 in 6.2 IP, straightening out the Curve something rigid. (Bonus Trivia: Kutztown U is the alma mater of what Good Giant?) Reed’s masterpiece was supported by a three-hit game and HR from former Dodger Jerry Sands and a couple more ribbies from KC Hobson.

Say this for the Squirrels, they are making it hard on teams to celebrate entry to the Eastern League playoffs this week. First they delayed the Trenton Thunders clinching the Eastern League for two days. And now they’ve won two of three from an Altoona Curve team trying to clinch the Western Division (they did so anyway last night thanks to Bowie’s loss).

Otherwise we can just cut and paste from yesterday’s post. Aramis Garcia hit yet another double — that’s 11 now in just 19 AA hits — and a walk as he’s adjusting well to the level jump. Garcia now has a .358 OBP over 20 games in the Eastern League, though he is striking out about 25% of the time.

And speaking of strikeouts, that’s back to back 2K days for CJ Hinojosa, who had just 7 Ks in all of July. CJ is saying “Get me to the fall vacation, please!”

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San Jose won at Inland Empire 66ers (Angels), 3-0

If this was Shaun Anderson’s final outing of the 2017 season, he made sure it left a strong impression. Anderson was perfect through 5 innings last night and ended up facing the minimum 18 batters through his 6 innings of work. A leadoff single in the 6th broke up his bid for perfection, but that batter was quickly erased on a strike ‘em out, throw ‘em out double play. That was the 7th and final K of the night for Anderson, who was simply dominant for 76 pitches. Using mostly a fastball that got up to 95 on the stadium gun and a sharp slider, Anderson only allowed three balls to leave the infield all night. Here he is picking up his first two Ks of the game in his first two batters.

And unlike Tuesday night, the bullpen held strong over the final three, giving San Jose a much needed shutout victory. For Heath Slatton, that came with a little help from his friend, CF Ronnie Jebavy, who got him out of a little jam in the 7th inning with a nice running catch.

If we do see Anderson pitch again this year, it’ll be in a post-season appearance. The Giants once again, are in a three-way tie a game back of Visalia. I have absolutely no idea what the myriad tie-breaker formulas are at this point, but somebody in the league office has gotta be sharpening some pencils about now trying to figure them out.

And lastly before we go, a look back to the previous night. As promised we have some excellent video and notes from onsite from Bobby DeMuro of Baseball Census (I definitely recommend subscribing to the Baseball Census You Tube channel). There’s much to be excited about in these reports: the presence of a changeup in Garrett Williams’ repertoire and the sharpness of Matt Krook’s breaking ball being the two that most caught my eye.

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Augusta won at Lexington Legends (Royals), 4-0 in Gm 1 (7)

Augusta won at Lexington Legends (Royals), 5-3 in Gm 2 (7)
sweeping their three game series, 3-0

I noted Sandro Fabian at the top of today’s post, but in fact Fabian’s day was rather sedate following his first inning blast in the first game of the double header. He had just one more hit over the next 13 innings, though that was his 29th double of the year.

Instead it was Kelvin Beltre who really went off in the twin bill. Beltre extended his hitting streak to 10 games, was on base four times including a double, a homer and a walk, and stole his 13th and 14th bases of the year. It’s particularly nice to see Beltre hitting for power again. After having gone 42 consecutive ABs without an extra base hit in late July and early August, the 2b now has two HRs and four doubles in his 10 game hit streak. That’s 6 HRs and 24 doubles on the year for the 2b.

The Greenjackets also got home runs from Shawon Dunston, Jr., Michael Bernal, and Skyler Ewing over the course of the double header. That’s 7 HRs in three games so far at Lexington. I’m sure these hitters would love playing in a park like this for the year. Can’t say yet how the weather conditions will affect the new park, but just getting new lights should improve the environment for hitters a decent amount. Dingy lighting has long been an issue in the more pitcher friendly parts of the Sally. Anyway, it’s fun to get results like this from your swings:

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Salem-Keizer lost to the Spokane Indians (Rangers), 10-5
getting swept in their five game series, 0-5

So, two weeks ago the Volcanoes won four straight games including a sweep of first place Boise to briefly put themselves in playoff contention a game back of first place. But since then they’ve lost 10 of 11 games including the last 7 straight. That’s uh.... not really going after it, guys!

Anyway, Jared Ravich, NWL journalist extraordinaire, had a long twitter thread yesterday on some important historical information that I’ve been neglecting. As there’s little else to discuss about this game other than Bryce Johnson collecting a couple more hits and Manuel Geraldo continuing a nice late season run, let’s let Jared have his say:

I don’t think Ryan’s going to make it to 83, but setting the all time Volcanoes record is pretty impressive! As is having 20 more RBIs than the next closest participant. Here’s to you, Mr. Kirby! A fine repeat season. Now go and stick in full season ball in 2018!

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AZL Giants lost to AZL Royals, 8-2

AZL Giants beat the AZL Royals, 5-2

Yes, it seems that Dr. Evil has lately made his way to Scottsdale in search of new mojo to steal and has successfully taken the life-force away from the AZL Giants. Even their victory in yesterday’s double header was lifeless and flat and kinda painful! Their lone RBI in the game came when Nick Hill was hit by a pitch — the third consecutive batter to be hit by a pitch. That was a scoring rally!

They did run a little hogwild in the second game which was nice — stealing five bases including two from Mikey Edie (9). They also got yet another huge performance from Franklin Van Gurp, who K’d 8 in a four inning relief stint. That’s now 41 Ks 29.1 IP from the 21 year old from Florida International.

Getting strong pitching like that has been an issue for the Giants of late, who are giving up runs by the bushel full. In the first game, Weilly Yan returned from a brief sojourn in the NWL, and while he too ran up the Ks (6 in 2 innings) he also allowed 5 runs, most of which were unearned thanks to his own throwing error on a comebacker.

Over their last 9 games the Giants have allowed an incredible 71 runs. Small wonder they’ve gone 2-7 over that stretch. We need Heliot to take on Dr. Evil and Mini-Me, stat! Get that mojo back by Tuesday fellows!

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Today’s Scheduled Starters:
Sacramento: Casey Kelly vs. Robert Gsellman
Richmond: Dan Slania vs. Brandon Waddell
San Jose: Dom Mazza vs. Joe Gatto
Augusta: OFF
Salem-Keizer: OFF
AZL: TBD

Final off night of the year for Augusta and SK going into the final weekend of the year. Chris Shaw and Mac Williamson get to measure themselves against a pitcher who’s spent a decent amount of the last two seasons in the Mets rotation. Meanwhile, San Jose hopes for a much better performance from Dom Mazza the second time around. They really need to win out. As I say, I don’t know what the tie breaker formulas are (particularly if multiple teams are involved) but I’m thinking that San Jose, with the league’s worst record overall, isn’t likely to do well in any of them. If they’re going to make the playoffs they need to take the division clean.

Dog days are almost over.