SF Giants Minor Lines 4/12/19: Frankie Tostado stays hot

It might have been close! It’s Friday Funday, coming at you.

HIGHLIGHTS: Ty Blach struck out 6 over 5 IP; Sam Coonrod struck out 2, extended scoreless streak; Frankie Tostado reached base 4x with HR.

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Sacramento won at Salt Lake Bees (Angels), 4-2

Sacramento got off the schneid with their first road win of the year in Salt Lake, thanks to strong team pitching and a late HR from Mike Yastrzemski, whose name I am definitely going to learn to spell without looking before this year is over.

Mike Gerber kept up his hot hitting, leading off the game with a double to extend his hitting streak to 6 games — that’s every game he’s played in this year. Gerber is hitting a scorching .407 with 11 hits in his first 27 ABs including four for extra bases.

The bats were just enough to support a strong suite of pitching performances. That started with Ty Blach going 5 IP, striking out 6 and allowing just 1 run on 7 hits. The pitching was at its best after Yaz gave Sacramento the lead in the 7th. Over the final three innings, relievers Williams Jerez, Steven Okert, and Sam Coonrod allowed just one baserunner to the Bees. Okert and Coonrod struck out 4 of the game’s final 7 batters to seal the win.

Coonrod is getting off to an excellent start in his first look at AAA. In four appearances he’s struck out 7 over 4.2 IP scoreless innings. He has been allowing baserunners with 3 walks and 3 hits, but so far the stuff has been good enough to stay off the scoreboard.

All in all, a nice clean win to get the taste of Vegas out of their mouths.

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Richmond has now been rained out in 3 of their 8 scheduled dates on the year. No makeup date was announced last night, so it doesn’t seem like they’re planning on getting in three games this weekend. Possibly more bad weather is heading Reading’s way.

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San Jose lost to Visalia Rawhide (Diamondbacks), 6-2

“I don’t know how to describe it, Doctor — I just get so depressed when Joey Bart and Heliot Ramos don’t homer.”

Yes, well, to every life some rain must fall. San Jose snapped a four-game win streak as a sloppy outing from starter Garrett Cave put the team in a hole they couldn’t escape. Cave has struggled with his control going back to college and last night was no exception. He threw just 39 of 69 pitches for strikes and though he walked just three batters he spent the night in hitters counts and the Rawhide made him pay eventually. Cave didn’t help himself out any with his defense as his own throwing error to start the 4th opened the door to a 2-out, 2-run rally that gave Visalia the lead for good.

Camilo Doval started the long climb back to a respectable ERA with a clean inning — hopefully this isn’t going to be annual affair for him. Last year it took him to Memorial Day to get his ERA below 6 and it wasn’t in the 3.xx range until July. At 17.18 currently it’s got a ways to go to respectability this year.

While Ramos went hitless he did walk 2 more times in this game — that’s 8 times in 37 PA and an excellent 8/10 K/BB ratio. Clearly he’s working on his selectivity this year and it’s showing in his early .214/.378/.607 line.

Bart went 0 for 4 but with no Ks, and in fact, swing and miss hasn’t been a big issue for Joey so far in the Cal, with just 4 Ks (3 BBs) in his first 36 PA.

Manny Geraldo is off to a slow start in the Cal League, but he pitched in with an RBI double — though he also made one of three errors for the Giants last night.

So maybe not quite so much excitement from Excite, but still a lovely way to spend a Friday night:

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Augusta beat the West Virginia Power (Mariners), 9-3

The secret to success in A ball is often just to take what the other team hands you — make less mistakes than your opponent and you’re likely to do well. Of course, that’s always true, but the scale of mistakes at this level tends to be a little larger.

West Virginia pitching handed out 11 walks to the Greenjackets last night and their defense made a crucial misplay to extend a rally and that largesse helped Augusta pour on the runs, scoring in five of their nine At Bats. Augusta’s pitching wasn’t exactly sharp throughout, but they limited the walks to 3 and that relative stinginess was a key in a game in which the teams matched each other at 10 hits apiece.

Frankie Tostado kept up his hot hitting ways. The sweet swinging left-hander picked up two more hits including his 2nd HR of the road trip and added two walks. After 7 games Tostado is posting a 1.080 OPS! More meaningfully, he has four extra base hits in his 10 for 28 start, as he’s showing more of a power stroke early on. The Big Crunch packs a punch!

Ismael Munguia had his best night of the young season, picking up three hits — he had just two on the year coming into the game — including an RBI double that gave Augusta it’s first run. He would come around to score the run that put them up for good.

After putting the ball in play in each of his first 25 PA of the year, Diego Rincones has been much more experimental of late! He now has 6 trips to the plate in the past three games that have resulted in no contact. On Thursday night he had his first multi-K game of the year, and last night he got really wild and took his first two walks of the year. You know things were getting out of hand when Diego walks twice!

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Today’s Scheduled Starters:
Sacramento (Enderson Franco) @ Salt Lake (Alex Klonowski)
Richmond (Conner Menez) @ Reading (Ramon Rosso)
San Jose (Aaron Phillips) vs. Visalia (TBD)
Augusta (Seth Corry) @ West Virginia (Steven Moyers)

Seth Corry tries to put the Greenjackets over the .500 line and Richmond just tries to get on to the field. Meanwhile, hopefully Kevin will have more offensive excitement to report on from Excite Field tomorrow morning.

Enjoy the weekend everybody. It’s baseball time!