SF Giants Minor Lines 4/5/19: Beede keeps rolling

I think we can all agree this was easily the most exciting part of yesterday’s Giants’ telecast:

For the real Giants’ excitement though, you had to head East down I-80 a spell.

Hey, it’s Minor Lines — this is what we do!

HIGHLIGHTS: Tyler Beede struck out 8 in 4 IP;

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Sacramento lost to Tacoma Rainiers (Mariners), 6-5

Tyler Beede didn’t leave the good vibes in Scottsdale as he was dominant in his first start of 2019. Relying mainly on a riding 4-seam fastball and curve, Beede struck out half of the 16 batters he faced on the night, while walking just two batters.

After Braden Bishop opened the game with a tomahawk double down the line, the Rainiers never made serious contact with a Beede offering the rest of the night; their other two hits came on a infield dribbler and a ground ball with eyes to the right side. Tyler was fairly pitch efficient, getting through his 4 innings on just 68 pitches with 40 hitting the strike zone.

UPDATE! Friend of Minor Lines @giantsprospects put together a Beede K mosh up!

It was a big step in the right direction for the 2014 1st round pick, whose April 2018 was a nightmare of walks and runs. It won’t take too many of these kinds of starts before Beede finds his way back to China Basin.

Unfortunately, former 40-man member Chase Johnson didn’t get his 2019 off to quite as solid a start. Johnson inherited a 5-0 lead from Beede and managed to rid himself of it in no time flat, allowing 5 hits and 2 walks in less than 2 innings of work. When Carlos Navas allowed a solo HR in the 7th to Joey Curletta, the RiverCats were on their way to their first loss of the year.

Speaking of firsts, Stephen Vogt hit Sacramento’s first HR of the year, a booming shot that cleared the bullpen in RF.

Vogt also helped Beede out of his one jam of the night with a great pump fake on a double steal attempt that led to a CS of home. Arm looked solid here, Stephen!

Michael Reed got his first start with Sacramento and quickly collected his first hit of the year (a double) as well as a walk, looking much more like the AAA version of himself. With both Reed and Williamson now reporting to Sacramento, the roster features 7 OF — and a playing time crunch that bears monitoring.

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The most successful team effort of the night — a rainout. Today is supposed to be 70 degrees and sunny, so a fine evening to play two!

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San Jose lost at Visalia Rawhide (Diamondbacks), 4-3 in 10 inn

After the festive, carnival atmosphere of opening night, the day after had an anti-climactic feel: back to the daily reality of the long schedule. Though the Giants banged out 10 hits, Joey Bart and Heliot Ramos went a collective 0 for 8 with 4 Ks and even a CS (Bart showing off the wheelz!). Heliot took a hat trick.

Elsewhere in the lineup, however, things were buzzing. Ryan Kirby went deep for San Jose’s first round-tripper of the year. Bryce Johnson, Orlando Garcia, and Malique Ziegler picked up two hits each. For Johnson, it was his second consecutive two-hit game as he’s gotten his 2019 off to a quick start. The speedy OF garnered a minor league gold glove for his defensive work last year, and offers a lot of skills that can help a team.

Nine of the team’s 10 hits were singles and they went just 4 for 13 with runners in scoring position.

Despite 4.2 hitless innings of relief from Joey Marciano and Frank Rubio, the Giants would go down in an extra innings walk off. Rubio, who had to be on fumes in his 3rd inning of work, intentionally walked the bases loaded to try to set up a double play after Visalia sacrificed their free runner to 3b. But Visalia got a fly ball to RF deep enough to end it and tie up the series 1-1.

Eh, that kind of night

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Augusta lost at Asheville Tourists (Rockies), 5-0

Excellent work by the twitter team! It took a little longer than they had in mind, but the social media strategy worked well enough in the end. Heading into the 7th, Augusta was on the short end of a perfect game, but Aaron Bond’s 1-out double broke up that nonsense, preserving old friend Dom Mazza’s accomplishment as the only Perfect Game hurler in the Sally’s long history.

That was about the only consolation they could take from the whitewashing, however. Augusta had just three hits and four base runners, going down to a shutout loss. LHP Ryan Rolison, the 22nd pick of last summer’s draft out of the University of Mississippi easily handled the Greenjackets young lineup, throwing 5 perfect innings with 4 Ks in his season debut.

Greenjackets’ Starter Gregory Santos no doubt dreamed of a slightly smoother — dare we say, Beede-esque — open to his 2019 campaign. But the 19 year old righty allowed the first four batters he faced to reach base, surrendering three runs before he’d recorded his first out of the season. In all he allowed four hits, including two doubles, and a walk in the opening frame. He settled down thereafter, but made it through just three innings of work in 58 pitches.

Still, though the results were stilted, the raw material that entices was once again on display.

For this night, anyway, this ball of clay was still awaiting it’s time in the kiln. Fight again another day, Gregory!

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So, from 4-0 to 0-3 — such are the vagaries of the baseball schedule. Five more games today and some happier stories tomorrow perhaps.

Today’s Scheduled Starters:
Sacramento: Tyler Danish vs. Shaun Anderson
Richmond: Brandon Gold vs Conner Menez; Ty Culbreth vs. Garrett Williams
San Jose: Trent Toplikar
Augusta: Jake Wong vs. Shelby Lackey

Surprisingly, last year’s 16th round pick out of UC Riverside managed to do what the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th round picks couldn’t — leap up to San Jose’s pitching staff. While Hjelle, Wong, Rivera, and Winn all enjoy (at least some of) a South Carolina summer, Trent Toplikar is starting in the Cal League. Who would have predicted that? Elsewhere, there’s lots of interesting starting options to enjoy, so drive down to Sacramento and catch a sight of Shaun Anderson and his flow. It’ll make you happy!

Enjoy the weekend everybody!