SF Giants Minor Lines 4/29/19: Logan Webb and Aaron Phillips Strike Out A Few

This is definitely me after this weekend, with a dose of the season finale of American Gods, which was far less dramatic. No spoilers in the comments, for those who haven’t seen it!

Highlights: Logan Webb struck out 10; Jalen Miller hit his fifth home run of the season; Logan Baldwin extended his hitting streak to 11 games.

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Sacramento lost to Albuquerque (Rockies), 3-2

After Ty Blach got a promotion to the Majors, Steven Okert got his first career start in eight seasons of pro ball, and the River Cats kept things competitive in the bullpen game.

Okert is having a pretty mixed season. His 17:1 K:BB ratio in 12.2 innings looks very good. But his four home runs already given up on the season puts him nearly halfway to his season high of seven back in 2015. Carlos Navas took the loss, giving up the other two runs. The free agent has a 4.67 ERA for Sacramento in eight games this season, average a little over two innings per stint.

On the hitting side, Abiatal Avelino had a 3-hit game, breaking a 3-game hitless streak, although that came after his last 3-hit game in Salt Lake. Avelino is batting .224/.263/.355 on the season, on the high end of where he’s been hovering most of the month. Meanwhile Mike Gerber hit his first home run since April 20th, his fourth of the season. Gerber’s batting line is .319/.368/.580, and is one of the best non-Mac Williamson hitters in Sacramento right now.

On that note, Mac Williamson did not start the game, but struck out in a pinch-hit at-bat.

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Richmond defeated Bowie (Orioles), 3-2

Richmond rode three home runs to a win in Bowie, coming from a couple of players who aren’t known for their power.

Jalen Miller had his second 2-hit game with a home run in a row, and now has five home runs on the season. He blew away his season-high total with 14 last season in San Jose, but is already on pace to beat that in Richmond, where it is far harder to hit home runs in the Eastern League. He also added a walk, and now has a .275/.359/.522 line.

Johneshwy Fargas got his first home run of the season in a 2-hit night, poking his batting average off the interstate. Fargas has struggled a bit in his first try at Double-A, and a .233 OBP has kept down his steal attempts, as he has just four on the season. In just 89 games at San Jose last season, he had 63 attempts (47 successful).

Meanwhile, Heath Quinn also hit his first home run of the season, despite those being part of his game. His season high was also 14 in San Jose last season, but he’s batting just .177/.243/.274 after a horrible start to the season. In his last four games, however, he’s 6-for-16 (.375).

All this backed what was arguably Logan Webb’s best game of the season. In six innings, Webb struck out a career-high 10 without any walks. Webb now has 31 strikeouts and seven walks in 27 innings.

I’m totally stealing that “Webb Gem” line for the future, and am a little upset I did not think of it.

Sam Wolff turned in another nice showing in the bullpen in relief. The 28 year old has 12 strikeouts, three walks in eight innings, a 1.00 WHIP and a .192 batting average allowed.

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San Jose defeated Inland Empire (Angels), 3-1

It’s starting to become time to pay attention to Logan Baldwin.

After starting the season with a .143/.167/.229 batting line through his first 10 games, Baldwin now has a 11-game hitting streak, with his first 3-hit game of the season. With it, Baldwin picked up his second double, and now has two of each kind of extra-base hit, two stolen bases (on three attempts), and even just two walks. Baldwin’s inflated his line to .260/.264/.416, which is not very impressive overall, but in the context of his first week and a half, is pretty good. That 25:2 K:BB ratio is definitely going to need some improvement, though.

Baldwin wasn’t the only hitter with a good game. Jean Angomas had a 2-hit game, raising his average to .233. The 23-year old right fielder is batting just .233/.266/.291 on the season. Catcher Chris Corbett also added a 2-hit game. The 24-year old catcher has been in just seven games, and is batting 7-for-19 with two doubles.

On the mound, having his best game of the season. was Aaron Phillips. With a season-high 9 strikeouts, and just three hits and one walk in a season-high six innings, Phillips was looking more like the pitcher who was finishing last season in Augusta strong. After giving up eight earned runs over his last two starts, Phillips is going to have to work on lowering an ERA that got massive, but that is a lot like his 2018.

Sandro Cabrera, just activated from Extended Spring Training, got into his first game and looked strong, only allowing one baserunner from a hit batter. Cabrera had a 4.88 ERA in San Jose last season, working mostly as a reliever.

If you’d like to hear from today’s star Logan Baldwin, he joined Joe Ritzo in today’s pregame show.

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Augusta had a scheduled day off

Augusta returns home on Tuesday for a week-long homestand against Lexington and Hagerstown.

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Today’s Scheduled Starters

Sacramento (Enderson Franco) at Albuquerque (Ryan Castellani), 5:35 pm PDT

Richmond (Conner Menez) at Bowie (Marcos Molina), 11:05 am EDT

San Jose (DJ Myers) at Inland Empire (TBA), 7:05 pm PDT

Augusta (Jake Wong) vs. Lexington (TBA), 10:35 am EDT

Let’s wrap this up with a little bad news. Augusta’s Norwith Gudino ended up on the restricted list last week, and we finally found out why.

That’s a tough mistake for the kid. The 23-year old had moved to relief full-time, and had been looking good in his first four appearances of the year. Now, he’ll miss most of the rest of the season on the suspension.