SF Giants Minor Lines 4/16/18: We Are The Bahr!

Let’s start today off with an alternate universe.

How much different would the Giants be today if Stanton had agreed? How much different were their farm system would be? And just who the hell would have made the spot start with Cueto’s injury if Suarez had not been with the organization anymore?

HIGHLIGHTS: Jason Bahr struck out 9 in another great start; Jalen Miller and Gio Brusa stay hot…or at least, pretty warm.

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Sacramento and Tacoma Rainiers (Mariners) were postponed.

#DidMacHomer? No, but neither did anyone else because of the weather. The game was rescheduled as a double-header on Sunday, May 13th.

In the meantime, Giants fans aren’t the only one paying attention to Mac Williamson and his ridiculous start to the year. Over the first 11 days of the season, Mac leads in close to all of the hitting categories for the PCL. He was named the PCL Player of the “Week” for April 5-15.

EMBED: https://twitter.com/TripleABaseball/status/985941387538558976

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Richmond beat the Bowie Bay Sox (Orioles), 4-2

Richmond got their fourth straight win even without a single extra-base hit. 25-year old Luigi Rodriguez picked up two RBI as he had his third straight game with two hits. Ali Castillo picked up three hits, and Miguel Gomez picked up a 2-hit game. Gomez is now batting 5-for-16 (.313) in five games since moving down to Richmond from Sacramento.

The pitching staff got a nice combined performance from five pitchers. Cory Taylor’s third start of the year continued a nice April for Cory Taylor. Taylor has yet to go more than five innings this year., but he’s been effective this year. He did give up a season-high in walks and tied a season-high in hits allowed, however. The bullpen had a nice performance, including…

Black actually had the roughest day, striking out two but also leaving the bases loaded before being lifted for Tyler Cyr to clean up.

At the bottom of the lineup, John Riley made his Double-A debut, flying up to Richmond from Augusta, where he started the year

The bigger part of that news is that Riley is in Richmond because Aramis Garia got injured on Saturday. The good news is that he should be back soon, as the he has not even been put on the disabled list. Still, Garcia has spent a lot of time of his young career injured with one thing or another.

For Riley, the 24-year old catcher only played nine games last season, mostly in Salem-Keizer but also one game at San Jose. He was 1-for-6 in two games so far this year in Augusta.

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San Jose beat the Visalia Rawhide (Diamondbacks), 4-2, in 10 Innings

The first takeaway from this game is Andrew Suarez, making a move to San Jose.

Suarez, of course, is coming off his Major League debut last week, where he gave up four runs over 5.1 innings. On a 49-degree night, Suarez ended up giving up a lot of hits, but kept the Rawhide mostly off the board. That set up the board for Logan Webb to get the win in relief, working three innings. Webb’s previous two appearances were starts, albeit short starts.

The Giants took advantage of the new extra-inning rules to score three runs in the 10th inning after scoring just one in regulation. Brandon Van Horn had a bases-loaded bunt single to break the tie in the 10th, Jalen Miller knocked in a run on a ball that led to an error, and Jacob Heyward’s sacrifice fly capped off San Jose’s scoring.

Inside the box score, Jalen Miller and Gio Brusa continue to seem energized by their bicycle, each getting a pair of hits at the top of the lineup. Brusa actually went 0-for-7 immediately after his cycle, but he had the walkoff home run in Sunday’s game and is now 5-for-15 over his last three games.

Miller also had an 0-for-4 day right after the cycle, but is now 4-for-14 since, with a walkoff home run on Saturday.

Hopefully the two young prospects can seize upon this spotlight to continue to push their sights higher.

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Augusta lost to the Kannapolis Intimidators (White Sox), 4-2

Jason Bahr is having one of the hottest starts in the Giants system, with Monday being his second straight start striking out nine without giving up any runs. After this game, Bahr has 22 strikeouts against just three walks in 13.2 IP. The 2017 5th rounder had a 3.55 ERA in his debut half-season last year at Salem-Keizer.

Even with that start by Bahr, Augusta was unable to capitalize to get the win. Reliever Eduardo Rivera gave up three runs in the 6th inning, which opened up the scoring in the game, and it would be enough for Kannapolis to get this win.

Augusta’s runs came off the bat of catcher Rob Calabrese and his first home run of the year. Calabrese, a 10th round pick last year, had a .277/.269/.383 batting line in Salem-Keizer last year.

As for your daily top prospect report, Heliot Ramos has quietly put together a nine-game winning streak, primarily with one-hit games. However, Ramos was also caught stealing, his fourth time being caught in five attempts. At least we know Ramos isn’t perfect. He also now has 15 strikeouts in 44 at-bats without any walks.. Meanwhile, Jacob Gonzalez had a basic day, going 1-for-3 with a walk. He now has 16 strikeouts and 3 walks in 44 at-bats.

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Today’s Scheduled Starters:

Sacramento: TBD vs. TBD

Richmond: Shaun Anderson vs. John Means

San Jose: Conner Menez vs. Emilio Vargas

Augusta: Garrett Cave vs. Lincoln Henzmen

Andrew Suarez is still officially listed as the starter in Sacramento. I’ll rely on my decades of baseball writing experience to say he won’t make that start. Anderson should be interesting to watch in his third start of the year, as he has 13 strikeouts in 11 IP against two walks on the year.

See you tomorrow with the Prospect Round-Up!