SF Giants Minor Lines 5/5/18: Everybody wins on Cinco de Mayo

Who’s the best CF in the Duggar family? The competition is fierce!

HIGHLIGHTS:

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Sacramento won at Fresno Grizzlies (Astros), 5-2

Orlando Calixte broke a 2-2 tie with a big two-out, three-run homer in the 9th to push the RiverCats to the victory. Fresno Pitcher Brendan McCurry retired the first two batters in the 9th and had two strikes on Chase D’Arnaud when he lost the strike zone. McCurry walked D’Arnaud then hit Catcher Ronnie Freeman to set up Calixte’s blast.

Interesting commentary on that home run on the Fresno fanbase flipping sides to root for the RiverCats. Touches on a piece Kevin posted back in spring training on the Astros relationship with Fresno.

Tyler Beede gave Sacramento his strongest outing of the year. Beede struck out 6 and walked just 1, though he did battle through a lot of long counts and was removed at 102 pitches just shy of 6 innings pitched. Beede had a shutout going until the very final batter he faced, but ended up with 2 runs on his line. He clearly seemed to tire in his final inning, in which he benefitted from Steven Duggar nailing the leadoff batter trying to stretch a single into a double. He allowed hits to three of the final four batters he faced. Still his strong outing kept Sacramento in the game.

Catcher Ronnie Freeman, just up from Richmond, had a strong game on both sides of the ball. Freeman brought in the tying run with a Sac Fly in the 7th and helped extend the 9th inning rally as well. But his most notable moment of the game when he nailed Fresno leadoff man Tony Kemp trying to steal 2b. It was the first time the PCL steals leader had been caught attempting a steal this year.

Still no word on how long Hunter Pence’s rehab will extend. He went 0 for 4 last night with 2 Ks, but he did make a strong big for his 1st HR of the year:

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Richmond won at Reading Fightin’ Phils, 8-4

Reading is essentially the Coors Field of the Eastern League, and Richmond has found the friendly confines of FirstEnergy Stadium quite to their liking this weekend. Richmond posted two big innings in last night’s game, a 4 run 5th to take the lead, and a 3-run 7th to pad it up a bit.

Once again they were led by Luigi Rodriguez, who has simply been incredible since being installed in the leadoff position. Rodriguez reached base three times, including a lead-off HR to start the game. He also stole his 6th base of the year and generally paced the Squirrels attack. Rodriguez doesn’t have enough PA to qualify for the league lead (the EL is being paced by wunder-kind Vlad Guerrero Jr’s incredible .398 batting average), but his line is extraordinary nonetheless. In about 70 PA, Rodriguez is hitting .414/.507/.621. That’ll give the ol’ offense a kick.

Richmond also got a HR from former Indy baller KC Hobson, who was just added back to the roster. In the 7th, Reading RF Jiandido Tromp badly misplayed a harmless Miguel Gomez fly ball into a triple, and that set up Aramis Garcia to salt the game away. Garcia got a hanging breaking ball in his eyes on a 1-1 count and he knew what to do with it.

Garcia’s been slumping lately, with his slash line down to .221/.267/.382 so it was good to see a solid swing of the bat from him.

Shaun Anderson was pretty hittable last night, allowing a season high 8 hits and a season high 4 runs. That line benefitted from an outstanding relay from Dylan Davis to Ryan Howard to Garcia to cut down a potential 5th run. That play not only got Anderson out of the 5th inning, it would ultimately allow him to record the Pitcher LOLWin.

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San Jose won at Lancaster JetHawks (Rockies), 10-5

More good offensive road environments! The Giants managed 10 runs on 9 hits and 6 Lancaster walks to run away with their second consecutive victory in Lancaster.

Their offense too, was led by the veterans. C Matt Winn hit his 2nd HR in as many nights (3rd of the year), and Frandy de la Rosa bashed a three-run HR to highlight a huge 6-run 5th inning (de la Rosa’s 4th). How big an inning was it?

The biggest night belonged to Wander Franco, brother of Wander Franco and other Wander Franco, also I believe so of and nephew to Wander Francos. Franco hit his 10th and 11th doubles of the year among three hits, continuing a torrid streak for the 3b.

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Augusta won at Delmarva Shorebirds (Orioles), 8-7

The Greenjackets came very near to letting a 8-0 laugher get away from them in the final innings, but they managed to hold on for a white knuckle victory.

Augusta jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the 1st, thanks to RBI hits from 1b Ryan Kirby and DH Orlando Garcia.

That held up until the 5th and 6th innings when Augusta ran wild, picking up 5 more runs on 5 hits, a couple walks, three stolen bases and some pretty shoddy fielding from Delmarva.

Garrett Cave worked 5 scoreless innings, allowing just 2 hits. Cave was mostly 90-93 on his fastball and flashed that excellent slider of his, but he really struggled to repeat mechanics and throw strikes. He was very consistently missing up and out to his arm side with the fastball, and just pelted C Rob Calabrese with scuds on the slider.

Still Cave was effectively wild. Camilo Doval brought the game to a whole new level. I’ve seen Doval be good before, but this was not a good Doval. He was glacially slow to the point where Pedro Baez would be making Pace of Games suggestions to Rob Manfred (at one point a Delmarva batter ended up backing out of the box three times without Doval even going into a set position). He was also a minus strike thrower with both his offerings, and yet seemed ticked off by every ball call from the home plate ump. His bad body language didn’t improve any when Jacob Gonzalez booted a tailor made double play that could have helped get him out of the 7th inning.

Doval departed after the longest four batters you’ve ever seen, and Olbis Parra was summoned to try to end the 7th inning uprising. Instead he tossed kerosene on the fire and when all was said and done an 8-0 game was suddenly 8-6 with two innings to go. Frank Rubio managed to hang on to the victory, barely, stranding the tying run at 1b in the 9th.

I noted Delmarva’s rough night in the field but they had one incredible highlight. I messed up the cinematography because i was watching the play and not my camera, but check out Delmarva SS Mason McCoy robbing Jacob Gonzalez and starting a gorgeous little Panik to Crawford double play here:

They say the hits even out, and Gonzalez was later awarded a double on a pop up to RF that nobody caught, so maybe it does

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Today’s Scheduled Starters:
Sacramento: Matt Gage vs. Trent Thorton
Richmond: Jordan Johnson vs. Elniery Garcia
San Jose: Melvin Adon vs. Rico Garcia
Augusta: John Gavin vs. DL Hall

Four games/four wins. Pretty good! Let’s try it again. In the meantime, enjoye Bochy’s slow burn twitter game! E