SF Giants prospects rundown 5/20: Bullpens shine throughout system

SF Giants Prospects Rundown 5/20: Low-A

San Jose Giants 3 at Fresno Grizzlies 2
Performance of the Game: Ricardo Genoves (2-4, HR, R, RBI)

Through three starts, 19-year-old Kyle Harrison (fifth-ranked prospect) seems to be showing some small but noteworthy signs of improvement. The De La Salle alum once again showed off a nasty arsenal that left Fresno hitters struggling to put the ball in play and struck out eight hitters across 3.2 innings of work. His wildness returned at some inopportune times, but he easily had his best feel for the strike zone this season on Thursday.

Harrison still walked one and hit two batters but should have got through four innings while allowing just one run. However, a dropped third strike with two outs in the third forced him out of the game, and Ty Weber allowed a run-scoring single, which was ultimately charged to Harrison. The Giants third-round pick in 2020 has quickly shown he belongs in professional baseball but is also far from previous quick-moving prep prospects like Madison Bumgarner. Harrison has struck out an absurd 22 of the 46 batters he has faced this season, but he has also walked nine and hit four. In fact, less than a quarter of the batters he’s faced at San Jose have put the ball in play.

While Weber allowed Harrison’s second run to score, the Giants bullpen made sure that would be all the Grizzlies could manage. Weber completed a 1-2-3 fifth before handing the ball off to Austin Reich and Chris Wright, who each struck out three over two shutout innings.

Catcher Ricardo Genoves (20th-ranked prospect) got San Jose’s scoring started with a solo home run in the second inning. In the fifth, Tyler Flores reached second base after a one-out single and set up Marco Luciano (top-ranked prospect) for a game-tying RBI-single. Flores finished the game 3-for-5 and is off to a strong start (hitting .357 in 14 at-bats).

In the seventh, with the game knotted up at two, Luis Toribio (ninth-ranked prospect) led off the inning with a single and, in a bizarre turn of events, advanced to third on a pair of balks while the next batter, Garrett Frechette, was at the plate. Frechette wasted no time driving in the eventual winning run on a sacrifice fly.

We’ll be back looking at the SF Giants farm system throughout the minor-league season with daily rundowns on the entire organization’s minor-league affiliates.