SF Giants Minor Lines 5/29/19: David Villar stays hot

A glooming peace this morning with it brings
The sun, for sorrow, will not show it’s head
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things

Just a horrible, heart-wrenching story for one of the newest members of the Giants’ family. I can’t, and don’t want to, imagine going through this loss. My heart goes out to Michael and Heather’s entire family.

It’s unrelated but whenever I think of Bobby Evans I think of him stopping to talk to me about the Giants on the National Mall, hand in hand with his young son coming out of the Air and Space Museum. I felt so guilty stopping him for a brief moment to chat Giants when obviously he just wanted to get in some family time and be a tourist at the Smithsonian. But he was kind and patient and friendly. There is no work-life balance for baseball people. They work all the time and give everything they have to this silly game. Be gentle, dear readers. Be kind in your thoughts and words about others.

HIGHLIGHTS: Johneshwy Fargas had two hits with a triple; David Villar hit his 3rd HR; Aaron Phillips allowed one hit over 6 IP.

---

Sacramento lost to Las Vegas Aviators (A’s), 7-1

Man, it just seems like yesterday that Sacramento had so many OF they were running two-game rotations to get them all in there. Now they have org guys up from Extended filling in? Like Dorothy said, “people come and go so quickly here!”

As for the game itself? Well...

As suspected, announced starter Tyler Beede was on a flight to Florida instead for today’s Giants game, and fill in starter Carlos Navas — who had himself just cross-continented the other direction from Richmond — allowed six runs over the first two innings. Despite being the PCL, it was never a contest after that.

This happened though:

Hopefully we’ll see Ray back in a Giants uni before too long, too. They way they’re dropping like flies up there I shouldn’t think he’s very far down the depth chart at this point

---

Richmond lost Binghamton Rumble Ponies (Mets), 9-5 in 10 inn

Tyler Cyr was one out away from closing down a tidy 4-2 victory over the Hobbie-Horses. But baseball being cruel, a doinked little flair into RF gave Binghamton new life, and in the extras they would charge all over Chase Johnson, putting a five-spot on the board in the 10th.

It was walks what done the deed. Cyr followed a leadoff single in the 9th with a walk and that free baserunner would ultimately come around to score the tying run. Johnson would walk three in the 10th. One of those was intentional, so that’s not so bad; but it was set up by a Wild Pitch that moved runners to 2b and 3b. That’s bad. Doesn’t even come with a free frogurt.

No, homer, it’s bad.

Jacob Heyward reached base three times, stopping a skid that’s seen his average drop 30 points in a week. If that’s not bad enough, he’s had 3 or more strikeouts four times in that week. Ouch! And speaking of rough stretches, Jalen Miller’s 0 for 4 has his average down to .231. He’s hitting just .202/.273/.293 in May. June’s not that far away, Jalen. Maybe the new page will be better.

Chris Shaw, OTOH, is hitting .305/.385/.505 in May with a 22 to 12 K to BB ratio. He’s walking 10.4% of the time and posting a low low K rate of 18.1% — both the best numbers he’s posted in his career other than his short return to the Eastern League in 2017. He could also probably play the OF as well as Dalton Combs. Just saying.

Anyway the offensive star of the game was Minor Line fave Johneshwy Fargas, who picked up two hits, including this thrilling run scoring triple — you have to be FAST to triple into the LF corner!

Caleb Baragar continued to find success in Richmond since coming up to AA. He has a 2.31 ERA in the Eastern League. If he hadn’t made that one spot start with Sacramento he’d be around 2.50 for the 2019 season. Baragar, along with fellow Richmond lefties Garrett Williams and Conner Menez, is one of the last pitchers left from the top of the 2016 draft. He out-dueled Mets lefty David Peterson, who the Squirrels touched up for 9 hits and 4 runs in just 4.2 IP.

---

San Jose beat Lancaster JetHawks (Rockies), 1-0
winning their series 2-1

No, Heliot? Boo! I hate rest days that are absolutely essential for developing young players. Hate them!

Ok fine then, have a David Villar homer. Rockies 1st rounder Ryan Rolison handled the Giants pretty well yesterday, but he gave Villar a first pitch fastball at the best and Villar knew what to do with it.

Villar got off to a slow start in April, but since returning from being hit on the elbow he’s found himself a groove. In 12 games after coming off the IL, the powerful 11th round pick out of South Florida is hitting .310/.370/.619 with all 3 of his HRs for the year, and 7 of his 9 XBH.

That stood up because Aaron Phillips simply dazzled the Hawks, allowing just one hit over 6 IP while striking out 5. Phillips’ fastball is a little short, but he can excel against minor league hitters when he has the curve dancing. Since hitting a season high ERA of 7.48 back on May 4, he’s allowed just 3 runs over his last four starts (22 IP) striking out 13 while walking 7.

There was another power hitting 3b in the San Jose lineup last night, as Ryder Jones dropped by for a rehab assignment following an extended IL stint with a quad injury. Jones has been plagued by poor health lately, ending last season painfully with his broken knee, then being slowed by hamstring and knee soreness much of the spring. He exited Sacramento’s Opening Night game with the quad and was playing in just his second game of the season last night. Jones picked up two singles in four at bats.

---

Today’s Scheduled Starters:
Sacramento (Enderson Franco) vs. Las Vegas (Parker Dunshee)
Richmond (Conner Menez) vs. Binghamton (Mickey Jannis)
San Jose (Sean Hjelle) vs. Lancaster (TBD) Gm 1
San Jose (Trent Toplikar) vs. Lancaster (TBD) Gm 2
Augusta (Jesus Ozoria) @ Columbia (TBD)

So Tyler Beede, indeed, did not make his scheduled start yesterday as we suspected and will instead take another attempt at translating his big league stuff into big league success. As Kenny recently noted, Beede’s combination of velocity and movement gives him possibly the best pure stuff on the Giants’ staff. The rest of the 2019 season they should surely be running him out there and see if he can get over the hurdle and figure out how to belong, because there’s nothing lost if he doesn’t and something to gain if he does. Good luck, Tyler!

Remember: what’s really important is the friends we made along the way. Honestly!