SF Giants prospects rundown 5/22: Caleb Kilian almost perfect

Starting pitchers dominated throughout the SF Giants system, but none more than Caleb Kilian.

Make sure to revisit our daily SF Giants prospect rundowns to keep up with each of their minor-league affiliates. If you do not feel well acclimated to the prospects throughout the farm system, you might want to revisit our prospect week articles that detailed the system from the top prospects to lower-level fringes. If you’re just interested in the biggest names, then the preseason SF Giants top 31 prospects list is the one-stop shop for you.

SF Giants Prospects Rundown 5/22: Triple-A

Reno Aces 3 at Sacramento River Cats 4
Performance of the Game: Shun Yamaguchi (6.1 IP, 1 H, 2 R (0 ER), 2 BB, 9 K)

River Cats starter Shun Yamaguchi was cruising along before the seventh inning. After only allowing two baserunners through his first six innings of work, things unraveled in the seventh. The Aces mounted a comeback when Camilo Doval came in to relieve Yamaguchi, but two runs were charged to the starter. The Aces lineup took advantage of Doval’s inconsistent control and tied the game up at three.

In the ninth inning, Bryce Johnson took matters into his own hands. With one out in the ninth, both Johnson and shortstop Thairo Estrada walked to put the game-winning run in scoring position. The Aces put in catcher Bryan Holaday. On the very first pitch, Johnson went off to steal third base. Holaday threw the ball to the hot corner but the throw was off-line into the far glove-side of the third baseman. Johnson broke home easily towards home plate to score the go-ahead run for the walk-off victory.

The three runs scored by the River Cats before the walk-off were all via the long ball, with second baseman Mitchell Tolman hitting his third home run of the season in the third inning and both Jason Krizan and Joe McCarthy hitting their second home runs of the season in back-to-back fashion during the fourth inning. Both Thairo Estrada and LaMonte Wade, Jr. drew two walks and even the pitcher Yamaguchi had a base knock in this game.

Yamaguchi is one of those AAAA-type pitchers in the system but was having a poor season before this stellar start. His slider and splitter were working well on Saturday and he was executing with his fastball. The Aces lineup took advantage of Doval’s shattered confidence after a pretty disastrous cup of coffee in the big leagues. It will be interesting if the Giants do decide to bring down Doval even down to AA to re-gather his footing.