Minor League round up, April 20

Three San Francisco Giants Minor League affiliates played games on Wednesday, with High-A Eugene getting a day off due to bad weather (they’ll play a doubleheader this weekend), and the ACL and DSL squads not yet having their season start.

Let’s jump in.

Link to the 2022 McCovey Chronicles Community Prospect List (CPL)

All listed positions are the positions played in that game.

AAA Sacramento (7-7)

Sacramento River Cats lost to the Oklahoma City Dodgers (Dodgers) 9-8
Box score

Well, well, well, that was certainly a high output showing for Sacramento’s bats. The River Cats had 15 hits on Wednesday, with 6 different players having multi-hit days. There were 2 dudes who reached base 3 times: third baseman David Villar (No. 19 CPL), who went 3-5 with a double to raise his blistering OPS to 1.019; and second baseman Jason Krizan, who is turning around a slow start, and hit 2-4 with a double and a walk to bump his OPS to .694.

Catcher Ricardo Genovés (No. 20 CPL), who has had an up-and-down (understandable given that he’s 22 and skipped AA), homered to raise his OPS to. 731. It’s still been a below-average offensive season for him (his wRC+ is 83), but it feels like a solid season given his age and position.

Shortstop Alex Blandino, who many people pegged as providing infield depth at the MLB level this year (he appeared in three MLB seasons with the Cincinnati Reds) hit 2-5 with a double to raise his struggling OPS to .633. But he also had the strikeout hat trick, which brings him up to 20 strikeouts in 50 plate appearances. He’ll have to improve on that front.

Not a notable day on the pitching front, save for the AAA debut of RHP Patrick Ruotolo. After a fairly dominant stint in AA last year, Ruotolo started the season in Richmond and pitched 3 perfect innings with 7 strikeouts. In his AAA debut he pitched 2 no-hit innings, allowing 2 walks and striking out 3. It wouldn’t be surprising to see him in San Francisco at some point this season.

AA Richmond (6-4)

Richmond Flying Squirrels lost to the Erie SeaWolves (Tigers) 6-2
Box score

Pretty boring day for the Flying Squirrels. Their offense had just 3 hits and 3 walks on the day, with a double by courtesy of right fielder Franklin Labour, who now has a .549 OPS, being the only extra-base hit.

The lone Squirrel to reach base multiple times was third baseman Sean Roby, who hit 0-1 bit drew 2 walks. Roby is doing his best Brandon Belt impression this year, as he has 8 walks and 6 home runs in just 38 plate appearances. The 1.466 OPS (a 275 wRC+) sure is fun to look at.

RHP Matt Frisbee made his first appearance of the season and, after struggling a bit in 2021, started things off on a strong note by allowing 2 hits, 0 walks, and 1 earned run in 2.2 innings, with 4 strikeouts.

Low-A San Jose (7-4)

San Jose Giants beat the Visalia Rawhide (Diamondbacks) 1-0
Box score

Holy pitching brilliance. You won’t find many games, at any level, with as dominant of pitching as we saw in this one.

We need to just go pitcher by pitcher for the Baby Giants.

It started with RHP Nick Sinacola, a 7th-round pick in last year’s draft. Sinacola was ho-hum in his first 2 appearances of the year, but thoroughly dominated this one, pitching 4 innings of 1-hit ball, while striking out 9 of the 14 batters he faced. It dropped him to a 3.00 ERA and 2.36 FIP.

Next up was RHP Keaton Winn, who was an exciting pitching prospect after 2019, but didn’t pitch in 2020 (pandemic) or 2021 (injury). He’s trying to regain his status and Wednesday was a leap in that direction, as he struck out 5 batters in just 2 innings, allowing only a walk. It was by far his best appearance of the year, and moved his ERA to 7.20 and his FIP to 5.32.

Then it was RHP Trevor McDonald, who had an up-and-down 2021 but was magical in this one. It was 2 perfect innings for McDonald, who struck out 5 of 6 batters, keeping his ERA at 0.00 and lowering his FIP to 1.31. He has 13 strikeouts in 7.2 innings this year, with just 6 baserunners allowed. What a start to the year.

Finishing it off was RHP Tyler Myrick, a 2021 14th-round pick. He earned the save with a perfect inning with 1 strikeout. Myrick had struggled in his last few appearances, so a nice game for him.

All in all, Richmond’s pitchers allowed 1 hit (a single), 1 walk, and no runs, with a whopping 20 strikeouts. Absolutely outstanding.

Visalia’s pitchers were almost as good, as they allowed just 6 hits, with a single by third baseman Yorlis Rodriguez knocking in the game’s only run. First baseman Victor Bericoto was the top offensive performer for the second straight game, hitting 2-3 with a walk to raise his OPS to .739. He was the only player for either team to reach base multiple times.

The Baby Giants drew just 2 walks and struck out 18 times, with 4 different players having the strikeout hat trick: center fielder Vaun Brown, who has a .561 OPS; shortstop Aeverson Arteaga (No. 12 CPL), who has a .757 OPS; designated hitter Max Wright, who has a .621 OPS; and right fielder Alexander Suarez (No. 37 CPL), who has a .631 OPS.

Left fielder Najee Gaskins, who doubled to raise his OPS to .611, was the only player on either team to not strike out.

What a wild game.

Home runs

AAA Ricardo Genovés (2)
AAA Austin Dean (2)

Thursday schedule

Sacramento: vs. Oklahoma City Dodgers, 6:45 p.m. PT
Richmond: Doubleheader @ Erie BayWolves, 1:05 p.m. PT
Eugene: @ Vancouver Canadians, 7:05 p.m. Pt
San Jose: @ Visalia Rawhide, 6:30 p.m. PT