SF Giants bullpen prospect completes incredibly rare achievement in Double-A

One SF Giants minor league affiliate already threw a no-hitter earlier this year. Now, Double-A pitching prospect Eric Silva can add another incredibly rare accomplishment to that list after throwing an Immaculate Inning for the Richmond Flying Squirrels on Sunday.

SF Giants bullpen prospect completes incredibly rare achievement in Double-A

For those who do not know, an Immaculate Inning is when a pitcher strikes out the side on only nine pitches. My buddy asked me one time whether an Immaculate Inning or a Perfect Game was more rare in baseball.

I confidently answered with a Perfect Game given that there have only been 24 thrown in baseball history. On the other hand, there have been 114 Immaculate Innings in baseball. The research suggests that an Immaculate Inning is a rarer occurrence when measured in terms of total innings pitched. Who would have guessed?

Do you remember the last time a Giants pitcher threw one? There have been three recorded in franchise history with the latest by Santiago Casilla against the Cincinnati Reds in 2015. The other two were Trevor Wilson and Orel Hershiser in 1992 and 1998, respectively.

Baseball is a weird sport and it must have felt like the Giants were being picked on in 1979. During that summer, they faced three pitchers who threw an Immaculate Inning against them. That list included Pedro Borbón (Reds), Lynn McGlothen (Chicago Cubs), and Joey McLaughlin (Atlanta Braves).

Eric Silva joins incredibly rare company, doing it against the Altoona Curve on Sunday in a 6-4 loss. Overall, he allowed one earned run with four strikeouts in two innings of work.

The Giants drafted Silva in the fourth round of the 2021 out of JSerra Catholic High School in San Juan Capistrano, California. He had a commitment to UCLA, but the Giants swayed him away from that commitment with a signing bonus just under $1.5 million.

In four minor league seasons, the right-handed hurler has a 6.65 ERA, 1.47 WHIP, 9.9 K/9, and a 2.22 SO/W ratio. This includes a 6.48 ERA in 17 appearances for Richmond this season. It bears mentioning that the Giants have moved him up aggressively relative to performance and he has typically been on the younger side of the competition. At only 21 years of age, he is one of the youngest pitchers in the Eastern League.

On the mound, Silva flashes a mid-90's fastball with a slider, changeup, and a curveball. He mixes in a four-seam fastball with a sinker, but in my opinion, the sinker has been the more effective pitch. The slider and curveball can both be above-average offerings at times, but he struggles to hit the strike zone consistently with all of his pitches.

At the very least, he can say he did something that few pitchers have before.