SF Giants hitting prospects rundown (4/18-4/23)

SF Giants hitting prospects rundown (4/18-4/23)

Flying Squirrels Hitting Prospects

Shane Matheny: 4 G, 12 PA, .429 AVG, 1.207 OPS, 1 2B, 3 RBI, 4 BB, 2 K
Tyler Fitzgerald: 5 G, 19 PA, .188 AVG, .941 OPS, 1 2B, 2 HR, 3 RBI, 2 BB, 10 K
Franklin Labour: 4 G, 13 PA, .308 AVG, .923 OPS, 1 2B, 1 HR, 4 RBI, 0 BB, 5 K

The best performer this week for the Flying Squirrels is Shane Matheny. The 23rd-round selection from the 2017 draft is off to the best start of his professional career with a 1.143 OPS through his first nine games of the season. He's shown a much more mature plate approach this season (more walks than Ks and 4.55 pitches per plate appearance) while also playing a stout infield defense (except at short where his two errors of the season happened). Matheny has a fringe chance to make it to the big leagues as a defensive replacement but this hot start should certainly help his case.

Even though Tyler Fitzgerald only has three hits this week, all of it are for extra bases and two of which are round-trippers. The first month of the 2022 season has been rough for Fitzgerald as the strikeouts kept piling on for the middle infielder, now with a 54% strikeout rate. He's still not seeing the ball well and has not looked confident at the plate for the most part. He's done plenty of damage last season with Eugene so there is optimism that he will get over this slump.

Rounding out the Flying Squirrels rundown is Franklin Labour. There is an old saying that when it rains, it pours. That saying has been pretty much the definition of Labour's professional career. When he's swinging the bat well, he's flashing his power with his bat that has the swing path and bat speed to produce home runs as well as wreak havoc on the bases with his wheels. Let us see if Labour continues this positive trend towards the end of the month. If he can find some sort of consistency with the bat, he has fringe big-league potential with his raw tools.

Will Wilson, Diego Rincones, Brett Auerbach, and Sean Roby all had a rough second week of the season swinging the bat but there are still plenty of good stuff coming from them as the calendar flips to May.