Mid-week Minor League round up

Starting tomorrow, these Minor League round ups will cover multiple teams from the San Francisco Giants organization. But for now, we have just one team to cover: the AAA Sacramento River Cats, who have played twice since the last round up.

Let’s check in on them.

Link to the 2023 McCovey Chronicles Community Prospect List (CPL)

All listed positions are the positions played in that game.

AAA Sacramento (1-4)

Sacramento River Cats lost to the El Paso Chihuahuas (Padres) 10-8 on Tuesday
Box score

Sacramento River Cats lost to the El Paso Chihuahuas (Padres) 8-5 on Wednesday
Box score

The early season trend from Sacramento’s cast of pitchers is a troubling one: walks. Lots of them. Walks and walks and then some more walks.

In Tuesday’s loss, the River Cats issued a staggering 12 walks, which they half-heartedly tried to make up for with 9 strikeouts. On Wednesday they got a whole lot worse, giving up 15 walks while striking out only 5 batters. Yikes.

Still, walks be damned, Tuesday was exciting because it featured the AAA debut of the organization’s top prospect, LHP Kyle Harrison (No. 1 CPL). He kicked off the free pass party by walking 4 batters in 2 innings, though he also struck out 4. His welcoming to Sacramento also featured a hit and a run allowed.

RHP Keaton Winn (No. 16 CPL), an offseason addition to the 40-man roster, had a similar AAA debut. Winn pitched 3 innings, but gave up 4 hits, 3 walks, and 3 runs (2 earned), while striking out 2. I’d guess we’ll see both pitchers in the Majors this year, but Tuesday was a good reminder that even the best prospects need to go through the bumps of the upper Minors.

But Tuesday was nothing compared to Wednesday. RHP R.J. Dabovich (No. 17 CPL), who had very nice walk numbers in AA but struggled with them in AAA last year, walked 3 batters in just 0.1 innings, while getting tagged for 3 runs. Dabovich has now walked 5 of the 9 batters he’s faced this season.

He was followed up by RHP Melvin Adón, who pitched an inning but walked 3 batters and hit another one. RHP Clay Helvey also gave up 3 walks in the game, while pitching an otherwise clean inning.

The offensive performances were rather mild-mannered. Center fielder Brett Wisely (No. 33 CPL) was the star on Tuesday, hitting 2-4 with a double and a walk. Right fielder Heliot Ramos (No. 12 CPL) also had a 2-hit day, while designated hitter Armando Alvarez tripled and second baseman Will Wilson (No. 21 CPL) doubled.

Wednesday was even more bland on offense, with doubles from catcher Ricardo Genovés and left fielder Michael Gigliotti being the only things of note.

While the Giants may be setting the pace as a home run mashing team, the River Cats have just 1 home run in 5 games so far. Let’s hope they can add to that soon.

News

Finally we have all the rosters for the Giants A-ball affiliates, as AA Richmond and Low-A San Jose released their rosters this week.

Schedule

Here’s Thursday’s schedule:

Sacramento: vs. the El Paso Chihuahuas, 6:45 p.m. PT
Richmond: Season not yet started
Eugene: Season not yet started
San Jose: vs. the Fresno Grizzlies, 6:30 p.m. PT