SF Giants Minor Lines 8/2/19: Jaylin Davis’ perfect debut

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HIGHLIGHTS: Jaylin Davis reached base all four PA with 3 RBI; Franklin Labour had three hits in his Sally debut; Marco Luciano hit his 10th HR.

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Sacramento won at Round Rock Express (Astros), 4-3

Jaylin Davis had a perfect debut in the Giants organization, reaching base in all four of his plate appearances including two RBI doubles. He knocked in three of the RiverCats runs. Davis has had a true breakout year, hitting .304/.397/.572 overall for three different teams in three different leagues.

Davis, who played for Ryder Jones’ father at Appalachian State, was considered a potential top 5 round draft pick going into his Junior season. But he suffered an shoulder injury making a diving catch early in that season that kept him out of game action for more than a year and slowed the development of his bat. The Giants are hoping that the health and development pieces are all coming together now for Davis, and the promise he showed in college is coming to fruition. Davis hit 11 doubles and 15 HRs for AAA Rochester in the International League before joining Sacramento in the PCL.

The decisive blow of the game came from ex-Oriole Joey Rickard, who crushed a tie-breaking home run into the upper deck. Rickard has been yet another excellent depth move for the Giants, providing Sacramento with a .426 OBP at the top of their order. His decisive HR yesterday increased his streak of reaching base safely to 25 games (pay no attention to math-challenged tweeter below — it’s 25!). In 317 career major league games, the former Rule 5 pick hit .245/.299/.372.

With seven wins in their last 10 games the RiverCats have opened up an 8 game lead in their division and their magic number is about to fall below 20. They’re picking up steam and cruising toward a post-season appearance.

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Richmond lost at Harrisburg Senators (Nationals), 11-2

Richmond constructed the ultimate nightmare inning last night on their way to a big loss in Harrisburg. The first eight batters of the third inning included:

• a throwing error by Ryan Howard
• two fielders choices from 1b Gio Brusa on which no outs were recorded
• a passed ball from Catcher Matt Winn
• three walks
• a Grand Slam

Logan Webb was the recipient of 10 — count ‘em 10! — unearned runs, though he certainly contributed to the proceedings with his loss of control, which worsened the deeper he got in what ended up being nearly a 40 pitch inning. A second Ryan Howard throwing error opened up the very next inning and Webb’s night was soon over, a macabre 5 hit, 5 BB, 10 unearned run stew.

And so the Squirrels sink to yet another all time low, 30 games below .500. Their 10th Year Anniversary season seems to be taking pains to remind the good folks of Richmond how much bad baseball they’ve seen out of the Giants’ AA affiliate in those 10 years. Please, god, let Joey Bart and Heliot Ramos lead the team to some kind of excitement next year to reward this fantastic fanbase!

And as if the play on the field wasn’t crazy enough, fans also got to experience this last night:

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San Jose lost at Lake Elsinore 66ers (Angels), 5-4

San Jose opened their road trip with a third straight loss — a topsy-turvy game that ended on a walk off Sacrifice Fly. Reliever Jesus Tona suffered his worst inning of the year, allowing three runs in the 6th to let a 3-1 lead slip away.

Heath Quinn would help bring the team back, doubling in Heliot Ramos in the 7th for his second hit of the game. One wonders if it isn’t about time for Quinn to finally return to Richmond where he started this season before more injuries derailed him once again.

Heliot Ramos had two hits in the game, nudging his batting average up to .306. The 19 year old is 4th in the Cal League in average. Interestingly, the league leader is another youngster who the Giants were heavily rumored to be looking at with that first pick in 2017 that ended up going to Ramos — Lake Elsinore’s Luis Campusano (who is also a huge personal favorite of Friend of Minor Lines David Lee). Ramos is 3rd in the league in OPS (.890) and 5th in SLG (.507).

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Augusta beat Lakewood Blue Claws (Phillies), 13-7
winning their series, 2-1

Augusta’s offense is really starting to roll. The team that relied on timely hitting and defensive miscues to sneak out low-scoring one-run victories is suddenly a well oiled machine of run production.

And yesterday that machine got a couple of new pistons! NWL All Stars Franklin Labour and Ricardo Genoves showed up and, like Jaylin Davis, immediately made an impact on the lineup. Labour was one of three GreenJackets to collect three hits on the night as the team rapped out 16 hits in all.

Ricardo Genoves hit the ball hard repeatedly last night, but he had just one hit to show for it. It was a big one though — a tie-breaking two-run double that helped catapult Augusta to a big win.

Diego Rincones and Jacob Gonzalez also contributed three hits to the cause. Simon Whiteman has reached base in every game since joining Augusta and given them a punch of speed at the top of the order with 5 SB. He did, however, strike out three times and make two errors last night as well.

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Salem-Keizer lost at Hillsboro Hops (Diamondbacks), 7-2

Admirable sentiment and all, but when you throw down the gauntlet, you need to follow it up by something better than this

The Hops put 5 runs on the board in the bottom of the 1st and held the powerful Volcanoes lineup to just 4 hits in an easy win. Salem-Keizer’s pitching has allowed 22 runs now in the past two games.

With the league’s #1 and #4 HR hitters having departed for the Sally (not to mention the league’s #2 SB leader in Whiteman), the Volcanoes are going to need to regroup and find a new combination to keep the offense humming. It would help if Hunter Bishop would get untracked and find his rhythm. It may be time for AZL HR leader Connor Cannon to come up and give the lineup some more depth as they roll towards a likely encounter with these Hops in the post-season.

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AZL Giants Orange beat AZL Angels, 8-5

AZL Giants Black beat AZL Cubs2, 5-4 in 10 inn

Marco Luciano was moved to the #3 spot in the order last night and he celebrated by hitting a 3-run shot in the 1st inning to help boost the Orangemen to another victory. That was the 17 year old’s 10th HR of the year. Joey Gallo was an 18 year old when he set the AZL record with 18 HRs in a season back in 2012. I’m ok with this comparison! Luciano trails only 22 year old Cubs prospect Alexander Guerra in OPS (1.138) and SLG (.580) in the AZL this year.

The Giants’ 20th round pick Najee Gaskins out of St. Cloud St. continues to give the Orange team a spark at the top. Gaskins had a double, two walks, and four — count ‘em FOUR — SB on the night. The 21 year old has a .493 OBP in his pro debut and is one off the league lead in SB.

Team Black came from behind in both the bottom of the 9th and the bottom of the 10th innings last night and they used the same weapon both times. Grant McCray’s leadoff triple helped them tie the game up in the bottom of the 9th. And trailing once more in the 10th, it was Richgelon Juliana’s triple that drove in the tying run and set up the winner. Juliana’s triple was a grounder that just snuck inside 1b on its way into the corner — at least the 1b ump thought so. The controversial decision led to the ejection of both the Cubs manager and 1b, but the call stood and Team Black had themselves a dramatic win.

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DSL Giants beat the DSL Royals2, 7-5

I missed a momentous occasion yesterday! On Thursday, the DSL Giants won back to back games for the first time since June 13-14 at which point the team was off to a 9-3 start. But fortune favored me and on Friday they went out and won a third straight game, so I could still mention this (for those wondering, the last time the team won three straight was that same stretch of games, June 12-14).

Victor Bericoto had two hits including a double, two walks, and two stolen bases to help lead the charge. The RHH 1b has been overshadowed by Luis Matos, but he’s still having a fantastic pro debut. He’s also been a model of consistency, hitting .337 in both June and July! However, in June Bericoto showed off some power, slugging .523, while that dropped down to .384 in July. But that tends to happen to young bodies playing daily games for the first time in the heat of the summer. Bericoto is also pushing his OBP into the stratosphere (.482) with 46 walks (against 39 Ks) in 228 PA.

Bericoto’s two steals were part of a big day on the basepaths, as the team stole 6 bases. That hasn’t been a strength of this Giants team so far, as they’re just 33rd in team SB.

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Today’s Scheduled Starters:
Sacramento (TBD) @ Round Rock (Brad Peacock)
Richmond (Garrett Williams) @ Harrisburg (Mario Sanchez)
San Jose (Jose Marte) @ Inland Empire (Cristopher Molina)
Augusta (Keith Weisenberg) vs. Hickory (TBD)
Salem-Keizer (Conner Nurse) @ Hillsboro (Tyler Holton)
AZL Giants Black (TBD) @ AZL Dodgers Lasorda (TBD)
AZL Giants Orange (TBD) vs. AZL Rangers (TBD)
DSL Giants (Luis Castillo) @ DSL Royals2 (TBD)

Well we’ve had Mauricio Dubon and Jaylin Davis make their organizational debuts now and Franklin Labour and Ricardo Genoves move up a level, but there’s a whole mess of bodies on the move these days so let’s see if we can get all the moving pieces down in one place:

Yup, the wheel keeps on turning.* One more month to see what else can be churned up!

Happy weekend everybody!

*let me just clarify that this is decidedly NOT a Journey reference — I couldn’t stand Journey back in the 70s and they haven’t improved on me any with age (sorry Hanford’s own Steve Perry).