SF Giants Minor Lines 8/24/18: Shaun Anderson throws 7 shutout innings

Coming to a major league stadium near you soon:

HIGHLIGHTS: Shaun Anderson struck out 7 over 7 shutout innings; Ryan Howard and Jalen Miller both had two hits with double; Heliot Ramos had 3 hits and 3 RBIs.

---

Sacramento beat Las Vegas 51s (Mets), 4-0

Shaun Anderson is really starting to get the hang of this AAA thing. He completed his finest start of the year last night (at any level) allowing just four baserunners over 7 shutout innings. Anderson struck out 7 while walking nobody — the second time in his last three starts that he’s punched out 7. Over his last five starts with Sacramento, Anderson has a 2.59 ERA with 23 Ks and just 5 BBs over 31.1 IP.

Here Anderson battles one of the minors best power hitting prospects — and his former teammate and good friend — Mets #2 prospect Peter Alonso, one of three Ks he picked up in the 4th inning.

Anderson was backed by an eight-hit effort including three doubles and a triple. One of those doubles came from Kelby Tomlinson — his first extra base hit as a RiverCat this year. Previous to last night Kelby had 42 singles with Sacramento, though he did have two doubles in a short rehab assignment in San Jose. Remarkably, with San Francisco this year six of Tomlinson’s 28 hits went for extra bases.

Aramis Garcia, who presumably is set to join the Giants on Monday, went 1 for 4 and is now 9 for 38 with Richmond. For the 2018 season, Garcia is hitting .233/.285/.381 but despite the low numbers, with Posey’s surgery, he’ll now get a month of big league time to show the staff what he can do and learn in a big league environment.

---

Richmond won at Altoona Curve (Pirates), 3-1

More strong pitching! Conner Menez followed up his 11 K masterpiece with more of a struggling outing — but he battled his way through to 4 shutout innings. Menez had difficulty finding the zone, walking as many as he K’d and using 97 pitches to get through 4 innings. Still he allowed just three hits and held Altoona when he needed to. Menez has had troubles with the strike zone this year, walking 57 batters — and hitting 10 more — in 130.2 innings. Menez has had an up and down August, allowing 7 earned runs in a game twice this month, but just 3 runs total in his other three starts.

With Menez’ short start, the Squirrels needed a lift from their bullpen, and they got a big one from Dustin Knight, who gave them 3 excellent innings, allowing no runs on 2 hits. In 17 games with the Squirrels this year, the 27 year old Knight has a 1.53 ERA, giving them solid production from their pen.

Dillon Dobson, back in Richmond following a stint in San Jose, provided some of the support hitting a solo shot into the eponymous Curve. It was Dobson’s 6th HR in Richmond (and 10th overall), but the slugger is still hitting just .186 in 62 games in the Eastern League. Counting his San Jose sojourn, he’s hitting just .201/.279/.367 for the year. Another player with a disappointing 2018 on his record — count ‘em up!

Ryan Howard continued his strong push to the end of the year with another two hit day, including a double. That’s Howard’s fourth two-hit game this week. The MI is having his best month of the year in August, hitting .325 with a .918 OPS. That OPS is nearly .200 points higher than his second best month this year and comes on the heels of a tough month of July in which he OPSd just .651. Howard is sitting comfortably in the much roomier “Giants Prospects with Excellent 2018 Seasons” Clubhouse. The walk rate has nearly doubled from last year, the already excellent K rate has actually improved, and his power has taken a slight but notable turn up. Great job, Ryan!

---

San Jose lost at Modesto Nuts (Mariners), 13-7

Modesto went nuts (hardy-har) on Giants pitching, cranking out 18 hits on the night. Pity poor Modesto SS Louis Boyd who went 0 for 5 on the night, when every single one of his lineup-mates had at least two hits. The Mariners #2 prospect Evan White (their 1st round pick in 2017) led the parade with two doubles and five RBI.

Most of the damage was done in back-to-back four-run innings. The first of those was the 5th inning when they drove starter Carlos Sano from the game and added on against reliever Dylan Rheault. That inning gave Modesto their first lead of the night. They added on in a big way in the 6th, going to town against Sam Coonrod, who had his first really rough appearance since returning to the mound this month.

Gio Brusa led the Giants attack with three hits, and the big guy also stole his 8th base of the year. Johneshwy Fargas, who at this point is running every time he gets on base, picked up his 42nd SB of the year, but was also CS for the 16th time. That 42nd SB gives Fargas the 2nd highest total of his career. Don’t think he quite has time to match the 59 he had in 2015 though.

Jalen Miller added two hits and a double — that’s MIller’s 34th double of the year and puts him on the doorstep of a pretty notable accomplishment. The 21 year old is now just one away from 50 XBH for the year. That 114 Ks to 27 BBs ratio still needs some cleaning up next year, but Miller has done an awful lot right to get his development back on the right path in 2018 — go have a seat next to Ryan Howard and Shaun Anderson, Jalen! They’re waiting for you!

---

Augusta beat Kannapolis Intimidators (White Sox), 11-2

Not so Intimidating now, are you! Augusta clinched a win in this five game series, taking their 3rd win over Kannapolis in just over 24 hours.

Nearly all of the production for Augusta came in the form of their wrap-around speedsters in the 9-1-2-3 spots: Malique Ziegler, Logan Baldwin, Manuel Geraldo, and Heliot Ramos. Together that foursome reached base safely 11 times in the game and scored all 11 of the team’s runs. Wow!

Ziegler did a lot of the damage from the 9-hole, picking up two hits including a triple, while also walking and reaching via a HBP. Ziegler doesn’t get to go to either the “Disappointing 2018” or the “Outstanding 2018” rooms, but rather hangs out in the Purgatorial ante-chamber. He did a lot of things well this year, but a long DL stint and the struggles to get back into the speed of the game when he returned undermined his campaign.

Manny Geraldo, however, who continued his push to get back over the .300 mark heads follows Miller into the Good Step Forward club — perhaps he and Jalen can spend their time discussing how they’ll bring their K rates down and push their BB rates up next year.

“Operation: End on a High Note!” continues unabated for Heliot Ramos, too! Ramos picked up three hits and three RBIs, and also contributed to two more runs scoring when a fourth hard hit ball was mishandled by the 2b for a two-run error. Ramos has four mulit-hit games in his last six starts — a stretch that also includes a game in which his only plate appearance was a PH double. He has a double, three triples, and a homer in that seven-game stretch, as he is really blistering the ball right now. With the three-hit day his batting average pushed up to the .250 mark for the first time since June 25. That time it only stayed there for a day before dropping back down again; hopefully this time he’ll just keep moving on up. That’s a .320/.333/.587 month for Heliot now in 75 ABs. Just 10 more days—finish strong Heliot!

Oh and I should note, Augusta picked up a little hardware last night for their beautiful (though amazingly video-feed-less) new stadium— to make it a Good Vibes night all the way around!

---

Salem-Keizer lost at Spokane Indians (Rangers), 10-2

Ok, so my idea of just starting Seth Corry every night didn’t get off to a great start, as Seth was sucked in by the gravitational force of the Volcanoes awful pitching. The young left-hander had one of those night’s when his control totally abandoned him, as he walked six of the 12 batters he faced, On the whole, Corry’s mechanical consistency seems to have improved this year — but he’s still a minus strike thrower. AZL doesn’t include any kind of pitch data, but if you go by the MiLB numbers since he’s moved up to NWL (and yes, those numbers are not totally reliable) he’s thrown just a hair over 50% of his pitches for strikes. On the positive side, he allowed only two hits last night, though one of those did leave the building.

An alert reader noted that my numbers for the Volcanoes staff yesterday had a major mistake in the Games played total, so let me update this and see if I can get it right: that’s now 376 Runs allowed (312 earned), in 67 games, an average of 5.6 runs per game.

However, one guy who’s doing it right is this year’s 16th round pick out of UC Riverside, Trent Toplikar. The right-hander had a brilliant night last night, striking out 6 over 3.2 shutout innings. He now features a 1.10 ERA in his 32.2 innings of work, striking out 25 to just six walks, while posting an 0.95 WHIP.

---

AZL Giants Black lost to AZL D-backs, 3-2

AZL Giants Orange lost to AZL Athletics, 5-1

Both of the Giants AZL teams were officially eliminated with losses yesterday — two games that saw very little offense and some shabby defense. The Orange team undermined Jasier Herrera’s outing with three errors — two of which led directly to a 5-run outburst in the third inning. The bats were also silent for most of the night, ending the evening in a particularly ignominious manner:

(as noted, the AZL doesn’t publish any pitch tracking data, however, the clubs themselves keep track, of course, and Aiden McIntrye is a RHP on the A’s AZL club, so we have good reason to presume that info is pretty accurate!)

Luis Moreno finished his 2018 with another excellent night’s work, striking out 5 over 4.1 IP while allowing just a solo HR. The Colombian RHP posted a 2.91 ERA in 58.2 IP this year, with 58 Ks and just 13 walks — I would say the best overall numbers for any of the various AZL starters this year, not including Corry. I don’t have a great line on what kind of stuff the just-turned-20 year old features, but without a doubt his domestic debut was a solid one.

Sean Roby kept his 9-game hitting streak alive with a single. He’s had exactly one hit in each of the past six games, so it’s not exactly a torrid stretch. Still the 12th rounder from Indio CA has done a nice job in his pro debut as well, tying for the Black/Orange complex lead in HRs with 5. Alexander Canario also has 5 HRs this year, while Beicker Mendoza and Fabian Peña lurk right behind with 4.

---

The DLS Giants did not play yesterday

They’ll conclude their season today with a double-header.

---

Today’s Scheduled Starters:
Sacramento: Michael Connolly vs. Kevin McGowan
Richmond: Jake McCasland vs. James Marvel; Garrett Williams vs. Scooter Hightower
San Jose: Mac Marshall vs. Ljay Newsome
Augusta: Jose Marte vs. Spencer Moran
Salem-Keizer: Jake Wong vs. Jake Latz
AZL: Jordan Scott (Black) and Ben Madison (Orange) vs. TBD
DSL: Samuel Quintana vs TBD; Sonny Vargas vs. TBD

Fairly strong slate for our Saturday with Jose Marte and Jake Wong taking the mound from the right side, and Mac Marshall and Garrett Williams from the left. For Williams, it’s his first start since June 23rd. Hard to tell if this is just a double-header exigency or if Garrett is ticketed for a return to a starting role (which does seem likely) — and possibly a trip to the AFL?

Only two weekends left. See ya at the ballyard!