Yesterday’s action on the farm.
The San Francisco Giants had five Minor League Baseball affiliates in action on Tuesday, so let’s jump straight into it!
Link to the 2025 McCovey Chronicles Community Prospect List (CPL)
All listed positions in the roundup are the positions played in that particular game.
News
A little bit of news. AA LHP Nick Zwack was sent to the Arizona Complex League to begin his rehab, as he looks to get back on the field after missing all of 2024. AAA Sacramento LHP Raymond Burgos was reassigned to Richmond, while Richmond RHP Nick Morreale was released.
AAA Sacramento (22-24)
Sacramento River Cats beat the Oklahoma City Comets (Dodgers) 11-5
Box score
A pretty solid, well-rounded game for the River Cats. It was a solid day on the mound for a pair of players on the 40-man roster, RHPs Trevor McDonald (No. 15 CPL) and Sean Hjelle.
McDonald got the start and went 6 innings with less than a baserunner per inning allowed, giving up 4 hits, 1 walk, and 2 runs, while striking out 4 Comets batters. He’s been having a fairly nice season, with a 3.89 ERA, a 4.95 FIP, and a 56.4% groundball rate. He’s also been remarkably consistent, mostly avoiding bad starts but not really having great ones, either.
It’s hard to see what his future is right now. He’s certainly behind Kyle Harrison and Carson Whisenhunt on the starting pitcher pecking order, and quite possibly behind Carson Seymour and maybe even Mason Black. He has decent velocity, but is not overpowering enough for the Giants to be looking at him as an exciting bullpen option.
The Giants probably aren’t worried about his role. Having a quality pitcher with a large repertoire who is regularly going 6 innings is a good thing. But it’s certainly not clear where he goes from here.
As for Hjelle, he gave up just 1 baserunner in 2 innings, though an error by his defense tagged him for an unearned run. He struck out a batter as well. Hjelle’s string results continue — he has a 3.33 ERA and a 2.86 FIP — but his lack of velocity makes it hard to see the Giants rushing to get him back in the bullpen.
The big performance on offense came courtesy of catcher Logan Porter, who hit 3-5 with a home run and 3 runs batted in. He’s certainly just emergency depth for this team, but the funny thing about emergency depth at the catcher position is that it often gets called on!
Also strong days for center fielder Grant McCray, who hit 2-4 with a double, a walk, and a strikeout, right fielder Daniel Johnson, who hit 3-5, and shortstop Sergio Alcantara, who hit 2-4 with a walk and a strikeout. After a tough start to the year, McCray is really starting to find his rhythm. Over the last 9 games, he’s gone 16-34 with 1 triple, 3 doubles, 7 walks, 7 strikeouts, and 5 stolen bases. Love to see him heating up!
AA Richmond (12-28)
Richmond Flying Squirrels lost to the Binghamton Rumble Ponies (Mets) 4-1
Box score
A very uninteresting game for the Flying Squirrels. LHP Seth Lonsway had a pretty awesome start though, pitching 5.1 scoreless innings and allowing just 3 hits and 2 walks, while striking out 6.
Lonsway, who was the team’s 6th-round pick in 2021, has no had scoreless outings in half of his 8 starts this year and has a 2.40 ERA. A strong season! That said, he doesn’t strike out all that many people, and has a less-shiny 3.87 FIP. But the Giants have shown how valuable players with high groundball rates can be, and Lonsway has a 53.7% rate on the year.
RHP Trent Harris (No. 20 CPL) had his 1st rough outing of the year. He pitched 1.1 innings and, while he struck out 3 batters, he also gave up 3 hits, including a home run, which tagged him for 3 runs. On the one hand, that’s not good. On the other hand, when you make it until late May before allowing an earned run, you’ve been doing something right.
The offense was less interesting. First baseman Bryce Eldridge (No. 1 CPL) was the only player with an extra-base hit, as he went 1-4 with a double and a strikeout, while left fielder Jairo Pomares (No. 41 CPL) and catcher Adrián Sugastey (No. 38 CPL) were the only hitters to reach base multiple times: Pomares went 0-2 but drew 2 walks, while Sugastey hit 1-3 with a free pass and a strikeout. Pomares, after a hot start, has really been having a hard time finding hits: in his last 10 games, the lefty is just 1-35 with 11 strikeouts, and Tuesday’s BBs were his only walks in that time frame.
High-A Eugene (20-20)
Eugene Emeralds beat the Vancouver Canadians (Blue Jays) 6-4
Box score
Now here’s a funny game for you. If I told you that a team had 3 hits and 16 strikeouts, and asked you to predict how many runs they’d score, I don’t think you’d guess 6!
But that’s exactly what happened, and the largest reason for it was a stellar game from third baseman Charlie Szykowny (No. 43 CPL), who hit 1-3 with a home run and a walk drawn, albeit with 2 strikeouts. It hasn’t been the season Szykowny was hoping for after a strong 2024 and an appearance in the AFL — this was his 1st home run in nearly a month, and he has just a .669 OPS and an 85 wRC+ — but it’s still early days. Hopefully this is the start of turning things around.
Designated hitter Quinn McDaniel had the other nice offensive day, hitting 1-3 with a double, a walk, and a strikeout. 13 of McDaniel’s 32 hits have now gone for extra bases, leading to a .178 isolated slugging percentage, which is very nice for a second baseman. But because he has just a .237 batting average, his overall number — .763 OPS, 111 wRC+ — don’t exactly jump off the page.
Just as you wouldn’t expect the Emeralds to have scored that many runs given their hits and strikeouts, you probably wouldn’t predict that Eugene would allow just 4 runs if I told you that they walked 11 batters on the day. All of their pitchers struggled with command, though the bullpen worked around it to not allow a run after a short start by RHP Josh Wolf. RHPs Tyler Vogel, Sadrac Franco, and Marques Johnson, and LHP C.J. Widger all had scoreless outings, but all of them walked 2 batters. Franco, who struck out 2 and didn’t allow a hit in an inning of work, lowered his ERA to 1.42, and has now gone 8 consecutive appearances without giving up a run.
Low-A San Jose (21-19)
San Jose Giants lost to the Fresno Grizzlies (Rockies) 3-2
Box score
The best performances in this game came on the pitching front, where RHPs Hunter Dryden and Evan Gray pitching very well. Dryden, a 17th-round pick last year, got the start and tossed 4.2 scoreless innings with just 2 hits allowed, and 5 strikeouts … though he walked 4 batters. Walks are really the only stain on Dryden’s resume in his debut season: he’s issued 13 of them, plus 2 hit batters, in 31 innings, but he’s given up just 21 hits and struck out 32 batters, leading to a 1.16 ERA and a 3.59 FIP. Strong debut!
As for Gray, who was taken in the 5th round a year ago, he had a similar outing: he threw 1.2 no-hit, scoreless innings with 3 strikeouts, but walked a pair of hitters. It’s been a similar story for him: he’s walked 9 batters in just 20.1 innings, but has given up only 15 hits and struck out 25, leading to a 1.77 ERA and a 3.51 FIP.
The offense didn’t do much. The trio of hitters at the top of the lineup were the only ones to reach base multiple times: right fielder Carlos Gutierrez hit 1-3 with a walk and a strikeout; center fielder Dakota Jordan (No. 8 CPL) hit 2-4 with a stolen base; and first baseman Jakob Christian (No. 30 CPL) hit 1-2 with a walk and a stolen base. Nice to see Jordan have a good game as he’d been in a little bit of a slump lately: this performance broke a 5 game stretch where he had just 2 hits.
Arizona Complex League (7-6)
ACL Giants beat the ACL Athletics 2-0 (7 innings)
Box score
It was all about the pitching in Papago. Getting the start, as an opener, was LHP Nick Zwack, who began his rehab assignment. Zwack — who came to the Giants in the Darin Ruf/J.D. Davis trade — was pitching in a game for the 1st time since September 13, 2023. How great to see him back on the mound! And for good measure he excelled, retiring all 3 batters he faced, with 2 strikeouts.
Then it was RHP Melvin Pineda (21 years, 2021 IFA) who gave up 2 hits and a hit batter in 1.2 shutout innings, while striking out 3. Pineda is off to an awesome start to the year, which is great to see after he made just 1 appearance last year in his stateside debut.
And finishing it off was LHP Ricardo Estrada (22 years, 2021 IFA) who was absolutely awesome. He threw 4.1 scoreless innings with just 1 hit and 1 walk allowed, and struck out 5. After 4 years in the DSL, Estrada is finally getting a chance in Arizona, and so far he’s making the most of it, with a 1.59 ERA through 3 games (though he has a 5.93 FIP).
Not much on offense, but third baseman Ramon Peralta (21 years, 2021 IFA) had a great game, hitting 2-3 with a pair of doubles. Peralta has been fantastic to start the year, though it is his 3rd pass through the ACL (and he had a stint in A-Ball last year, too).
Home run tracker
AAA Logan Porter (2)
High-A Charlie Szykowny (3)
Wednesday schedule
Sacramento: at Oklahoma City, 5:05 p.m. PT (SP: Carson Seymour)
Richmond: at Binghamton, 9:05 a.m. PT (SP: Joe Whitman)
Eugene: vs. Richmond, 6:35 p.m. PT (SP: Josh Bostick)
San Jose: at Fresno, 6:50 p.m. PT (SP: Niko Mazza)