SF Giants Minor Lines 7/15/18: Bart does Bart things

Quite a day at Nats Stadium! Triple-digit velocity! Majestic, laser shots into the bleachers! Massive oohs and ahhhs from the crowd!

And the Giants highlight!

That’s very nice, you two! How pleasant.

Seriously, a great great afternoon at the Future’s Game yesterday. Congratulations to Shaun and Heliot, to the Reds’ Taylor Trammell, as well as Ke’Bryan Hayes (legacy Giant!), Peter Alonso, Adonis Medina, Yusniel Diaz and all of the young future stars who shined on their biggest stage.

HIGHLIGHTS: Aramis Garcia went 3 for 3 with two doubles; Kelvin Beltre had four hits; Joey Bart doubled and homered; Jake Wong struck out 4 in 2 shutout innings; Alexander Canario had three hits inluding a double and walked.

NOTE: MiLB.com’s site is having some technical wonkiness today so some information is missing from the box scores and graphics.

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Sacramento beat Salt Lake Bees (Angels), 6-5
losing their series, 1-3

The Pitchers’ duel that was supposed to be the feature attraction of this game didn’t quite materialize. Both Chris Stratton and the Angel’s Griffin Canning allowed 5 runs in the first 4 innings of the game. Then it settled down to a duel of bullpens over the second half of the game.

Peter Bourjos struck the decisive blow when he tripled to lead off the 7th inning. Chris Shaw then ripped a single through the teeth of a shift to drive Bourjos home with the winner.

Derek Law picked up the two inning save allowing just one of the seven batters he faced to reach base. Law hasn’t surrendered a run in nearly a month now. In nine appearances since June 19th, Law has allowed no runs on just three hits and no walks while striking out 12. Perhaps the old Derek is coming back at last?

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Richmond won at Trenton Thunder (Yankees), 4-3
splitting their series, 2-2

Aramis Garcia’s resurgence continued as the Catcher reached base four times yesterday, going 3 for 3 with a walk. That included two doubles for Garcia (11 and 12 on the season), boosting his SLG to the edge of the .400 line. With eight hits in his past five games, Garcia’s season line is now up to .231/.380/.397.

The game saw the return of Chris Heston to the upper minors. Heston threw 4 shutout innings with five strikeouts in his first game with RIchmond since 2012. This was just Heston’s second game in full-season ball this year, following a long DL stint and five rehab appearances in rookie ball. The game began with a lengthy rain delay, which may explain why Heston came out of the bullpen rather than starting — didn’t want to take a chance on lingering storms causing another delay.

Garrett Williams followed Heston with a clean inning of relief, 2 Ks and 0 BBs. Nice to see!

After nine innings of 1-0 baseball, a barn burner suddenly broke out in the 9th as both teams ended up scoring 3 times in the final inning. Sam Wolff had no end of difficulty closing the door, but he finally got a ground out to Jonah Arenado to end it with the tying run at 2b. Ali Castillo’s liner that was misplayed into an RBI triple ended up the game winner.

As has been widely reported, Anderson won’t be returning to the Squirrels after yesterday’s Future’s Game appearance. The right-hander is on to Sacramento and a step closer to the majors. Congrats Shaun! Despite the bomb to Diaz, Anderson looked good in his inning yesterday, and showed off a particular effective change.

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San Jose beat Visalia Rawhide (Diamondbacks), 6-5

Kelvin Beltre is heating up. The infielder picked up four hits yesterday to help lead San Jose to a back-and-forth 6-5 win. As Joe Ritzo pointed out in the game, Beltre was really living right in this game. His double came on a broken bat that looped over the head of the 3b, and one of his singles came as he was actually trying to call for time out — you don’t see that everyday!

Starter Joey Marciano was roughed up a bit by the Rawhide, giving up 5 runs in just 3.2 IP. Marciano only allowed four hits in the game but three of them left the yard. Marciano allowed just 3 HRs in 80 innings in the South Atlantic League, but he’s already surrendered 6 in just 8 innings in the Cal. Welcome to a higher level, Joey!

However, Franklin Van Gurp put an end to all the Rawhide foolishness with a tremendous middle relief effort. Van Gurp struck out 6 of the 9 batters he faced, completely dominating Visalia over 2.1 IP. As you can hear in the following play by play, Van Gurp is a recent transition to Pitching—and the conversion is clearly going well so far! Maybe 2018 is the Year of the Pitcher Convert in the Giants’ org.

Jacob Heyward drove in the game winner in the bottom of the 8th in a game that featured four lead changes and three ties.

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Augusta lost to Rome Braves, 1-0

The Greenjackets were lulled to sleep by the high octane arm of Braves Huascar Ynoa—yet another young power arm in an organization that is chocked full of them

Over 5 innings Ynoa allowed just one hit and no runs while striking out 8 Augusta batters. Things didn’t improve much when the bullpen came in either as Augusta had just two more hits and 5 Ks the rest of the way.

All three of Augusta’s hits were singles and they added in just two walks, pushing just four runners to 2b in the game. Two of those were thanks to Nick Hill stolen bases.

Aaron Phillips was pretty great in his own right, striking out 9 over 7 innings and allowing just 1 run on a Greyson Jenista Sac Fly in the top of the 1st. Jenista was Atlanta’s 2nd round pick this year.

The 21 year old Phillips has really righted the ship after his 8 run start on June 24. Over his past four starts he’s struck out 29 batters over 22.2 IP while allowing just 8 earned runs.

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Salem Keizer lost at Everett AquaSox (Mariners), 7-6

Did Joey HR? I’m glad you asked!

OF COURSE Joey homered. And he chipped in a measly ol’ double as well. Bart is hitting a whopping .310/.356/.857 in his first 10 games in the NWL. I’d say the transition to pro ball is going ok for the #2 pick.

It was also another fine day for leadoff hitter Jose Layer, who is enjoying (and I say this with trepidation and fear of jinx potential) a season of health finally. Layer tripled and homered in scoring two runs in the game. The 21 year old Layer is enjoying a strong NWL campaign, hitting .337/.411/.544 over 24 games.

3rd round pick Jake Wong started the game and went 2 strong innings, striking out 4 of the 8 batters he faced. He allowed just two baserunners and no runs, and left with a 4-0 lead.

That lead unfortunately vanished under the care of his followers, including 5th round pick Keaton Winn, who is featuring a 5.06 ERA so far. Winn and Miguel Figueroa quickly surrendered the lead.

But Layer’s and Bart’s home runs, each solo shots, put the Volcanoes back in the lead by the 7th. One final long ball—this one a two-run shot— allowed by Mack Meyer in the bottom of the 7th swung the game back to Everett however.

Despite Bart’s heroics, the Volcanoes have dropped 8 of their last 10 games as the pitching just hasn’t been there to support the lineup.

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AZL Black beat AZL Brewers, 6-2

AZL Orange beat AZL Mariners 7-6

Seth Corry’s excellent campaign hit a speed bump as the young lefty was pounded for 8 hits and 4 earned runs without getting out of the 2nd inning. Corry had allowed just 1 earned run in five games prior to last night. Must not have been used to pitching out of the stretch!

Alexander Canario had his best offensive game of the year, reaching base four time on three hits and a walk. That output included his first double of the season—just his second extra base hit. The lack of power has been the most surprising, and concerning, element of his slow start. He’s now 16 for his last 43 since June 29, so the bat is starting to show up, which is nice! Just too much talent there to struggle against this level of competition.

Beicker Mendoza continues to be a source of run production for the Orange team as he drove in three runs with three hits himself. Mendoza is now in his third year of the AZL — he was once Sandro Fabian’s AZL teammate! But this is the first time he’s gotten steady play.

Good to see Malique Ziegler back in the lineup after his rehab appearance suffered a setback and a two week reset. It would be nice to see him back in Augusta for August.

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Again, we have some site wonkiness that is preventing me from seeing the scheduled starters today. Hopefully they have it ironed out soon.

In the meantime, we have these notes from the best pipeline to DSL info on the planet, GPT: