SF Giants Minor Lines 5/10/18: Ramos and Gonzalez share HR inning

A Minor Lines math puzzle for you — 1 + 3 + 1 = 15?

Kevin Cunningham

All will be made clear!

HIGHLIGHTS: Shaun Anderson matched a career high with 8 Ks; Jason Bahr set a career high with 11 Ks; Jacob Gonzalez had two hits including a Grand Slam, a walk and a SB;

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Sacramento lost to Salt Lake Bees (Angles), 7-2

Unclear whether the artist known as Young Beedah is a Hamilton fan or not, but he seems to be intent upon throwing away his shot. With the big club increasingly desperate for some quality pitching depth, their #1 pitching prospect is currently spinning his wheels in AAA.

In last night’s start Tyler Beede had more Walks allowed (6) than Outs recorded (5) which I feel confident in saying...hang on let me check a few reference sites...yes! confident in saying this is never a good thing. He also threw two WP. Just for kicks. Beede threw just 25 of his 60 pitches last night in the strike zone. He’s now 4th in the PCL in walks, despite having just 5 starts in the league for the year. And his PCL ERA for 2018 is up to 5.63. He is missing bats, with more than a strikeout per inning, but a 26 to 18 K:BB ratio isn’t gonna work. Nolan Riggs came into his AAA debut in relief of Beede with the bases loaded and he picked up the final out of the inning to protect Tyler’s line a bit. Nice work by the 6’8” galoot!

On the offense Sacramento produced just five hits. Austin Slater and Chris Shaw teamed up to create a run in the 1st inning on consecutive hits, including Shaw’s RBI double. But the next 15 Sacramento hitters would be retired and the team wouldn’t produce another hit until the 8th inning. Not their night.

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Richmond beat Trenton Thunder (Yankees), 3-1

One night after Richmond squeaked out a 1-0 victory, they looked for most of the night like they were headed towards a 1-0 loss. On a rainy summer night, Shaun Anderson was mostly brilliant, tying a career high with 8 Ks in 5 innings of work. But an RBI double in the 4th had him leaving the game on the poor side of a pitching duel with the Thunder’s Erik Swanson. Swanson dazzled the Squirrels over 7 shutout innings, punching out 9 batters of his own. And he’s not even one of the Yankees (many many) GOOD pitching prospects.

The 1-0 deficit may not seem like much, but it brought up a dubious note for the 2018 Squirrels:

Excellent foreshadowing, Richmond social media team! With Swanson out of the game in the 8th, Richmond scratched out a rally. Ronnie Jebavy sped his way to an infield single, and Luigi Rodriguez pushed him to 2b with a walk. Rodriguez had yet another two hit game, pushing his average to an almost comical .429 and his OBP to .518. A Miguel Gomez single brought Jebavy around with the game-tying run.

Ryan Halstead weaved through traffic in the 9th, despite taking a painful comeback off the leg that could end him on the DL. It also, according to the official game log, apparently caused Richmond to end the 9th with a ghost pitcher.

That set up some 9th inning dramatics, courtesy of Dillon Dobson who, like many of his teammates, has been getting his tail whipped by AA so far. But for a night at least, Dobson was a champion, crushing his 2nd HR of the year into the dark night.

Dobson’s HR made for great theatrics, but it wasn’t the biggest departure of the night for Richmond (BRILLIANT SEGUE ALERT!), as a move we’ve been waiting for for nearly two years finally took place yesterday:

Knock ‘em dead, Ray! Take that magic arm of yours and knock ‘em dead!

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San Jose won at Modesto Nuts (Mariners), 13-7
winning their series, 2-1

On Wednesday, San Jose’s offense came in one giant outburst. Yesterday, they attacked consistently throughout, putting up five crooked number innings in the game. San Jose hitters took particular advantage of the Nuts bullpen, scoring 7 runs over the final three frames.

The lineup has really been clicking since Wander Franco was moved into the 3-hole. He’s done little but hit ever since.

They’ve also been getting steady production at the bottom of the lineup from Johneshwy Fargas, who came up with two more hits last night and his team leading 11th SB. Team leading is something of an understatement there — the rest of the team combined has just 22 SB, and no other player has more than 5. Fargas is now 18 for his last 37 ABs, stretching back to April 20. During that streak he’s had more walks (5) than Ks (4), and he’s shown some pop with three doubles, a triple, and a two-HR game. Nice work, Johneshwy!

The big game last night belonged to Gio Brusa. The new 1b had an RBI single in the first, a two-run HR, and capped the night off with an RBI double. The four RBI night gave Brusa 20 for the year, just behind team leader Franco’s 22. He also tied with Frandy de la Rosa for the team lead with his 5th HR. For the year, Brusa is now slashing .276/.331/.500. He rode the HR out to the opposite field off the mid-90s offerings of funky sidewinder Wyatt Mills, who came into the game with a tiny 1.38 ERA and left with a slightly less tiny 4.20 mark!

Sandro Fabian also gave the team two RBIs and two hits. Fabian helped put the Giants in the lead in the 7th inning, getting a 0-2 hanger in his eyes and drilling it into the corner to tie the game. He’d come around to score the go ahead. The 20 year old has looked a little over-matched early on this year in a challenging assignment. He’s still swinging at most everything, but he is already half way to his 2017 walk total with 5 BBs in his first 100 ABs. Baby steps, Sandro!

The Giants return home with a share of 1st place and the league’s best record. They’ll mirror their just concluded road trip with six games at home against Lancaster and Modesto.

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Augusta beat Rome Braves (silly), 15-1

It was power pitching up front and power hitting down the stretch for the Greenjackets last night. Jason Bahr had his first double digits strikeout night of his pro career, mowing down 11 Braves in his 6 innings of work. The big night gave Bahr the league lead in Ks with 49 in 35 IP. It’s worth noting that Bahr’s velo looks like it plays up considerably in shorter stints, but he sticks in the low 90s over starter work loads.

Bahr was given breathing room early on thanks to the suddenly red hot Manny Geraldo, who is having an offensive breakout in his third shot at the Sally. Geraldo singled in Jacob Gonzalez in the 2nd, and came up with a big hit in the 3rd, tripling in three runs. Geraldo has hits in 13 of his last 14 games, raising his OPS from .646 to .807 in that time. He also walked and stole his team-leading 10th and 11th bases of the season last night.

All of that likely would have made him the offensive story of the game, until Augusta erupted in the 7th, scoring 10 runs and sending multiple thrills through the audience. Five batters into the inning Jacob Gonzalez turned the game into a laugher with his second hit of the night — a Grand Slam, his 3rd HR of the year (Jacob also picked up a SB in the game. Combo meal!). Three batters later Ryan Kirby hit a three-run tater (his 4th). And they still weren’t done. To really punctuate the night, the Augusta crowd got something they’d probably been waiting for all year, a titanic Heliot Ramos blast.

The end result was a giant 10 run inning that the scoreboard couldn’t contain (thus the answer to the riddle at the top — the scoreboard naturally can’t manage a double digit inning). Also, that building is really taking some punishment this week! I’m thinking I might not want to buy a condo on the field side!

Once again Kevin was taking in the sights from Augusta. His notes from the night:

More good words for Baldwin. There’s tools there; he had another bunt for a single perfectly pushed beyond the pitcher on the first base side. He showed off a strong arm (if not accurate) from RF, and he’s got good reads in the outfield. I still worry about the hitch in his swing.

Ramos hit an absolute monster of a home run off the facing of the building in a 3-HR 7th inning. He hadn’t been great at barreling up the ball that I’d seen, but boy, when he does... And, to make it even more impressive, that was in the same inning in which he got hit in the shin with a fastball! Shin guards are very, very helpful. Still, his best at-bat was one where he took two strikes (called), but then worked a walk over the next five pitches, taking breaking pitches that were off the zone and fouling off the one fastball he got.

Jacob Gonzalez had one of the other home runs, a grand slam, also to the building (don’t know if it got the building on the fly or bouncing off the scoreboard), and he just looked good at the plate all night long. He’s got a good swing and a solid eye for pitches out of the zone.

Ryan Kirby got the third home run of the inning, but that was to the right field power alley where there’s a nice jutting of the fence to help batters. He also had a great play jumping to catch a line drive hit right above him as he held a runner on at first. He needed just a step to complete the double play.

Jason Bahr was the starter, throwing a FB 91-92 and his changeup around 81. He worked best when he was mixing those two speeds to get swing throughs. He had a pitch at 88-89 (either a slider or a 2-seam fastball, I think the latter) but had little control over it, often landing it in the dirt or grass before the plate. He also had a slow curve that he didn’t use until later in the game, and not often enough.

Carlos Sano got in and ended up finishing the game despite the bullpen being active later. His fastball started at 88-89, but got to 91 in his second inning of work. There was a slow 83-84 MPH slider, and a 78 MPH curve I think I only saw twice. Interesting note: Sano just got called up, he was wearing number 45 last night, but was wearing #37 tonight. And he still has no name on the back.

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Today’s Scheduled Starters:
Sacramento: Matt Gage vs. John Lamb
Richmond: Jordan Johnson vs. Will Carter
San Jose: Raffi Vizcaino vs. Rico Garcia
Augusta: Garrett Cave vs. Bruce Zimmermann

All four teams are either in 1st place or 2nd place in their division, and for the A ball clubs who both play in leagues with first half champions, that is going to matter pretty quickly. Both San Jose and Augusta have a little over a month left to the end of the first half and both are in tight competition at the top of the division. San Jose is tied with Stockton, while Augusta gave themselves a 1 game lead over Rome yesterday and will try to widen that mark with another win over the Braves tonight.

So get out there and root for the home team! Friday night is baseball night in America!