There was an erroneous report going around the internet that Marco Luciano had been re-called to the Giants in the wake of the A.J. Pollock’s injury. As we all found out by waiting politely, the truth was that Heliot Ramos — a much more logical one-for-one replacement — had been recalled to the majors, while Luciano had been removed on Tuesday night with a hamstring injury.
Taking these in immediate order, Ramos’ call-up was certainly well deserved. The 23-year-old is going through his most productive prolonged stretch of baseball since before the pandemic, back when he was a whippersnapper 19-year-old tearing up the then-High A California League. He’s hit .333/.384/.684 with eight jacks since his return from the 60-day IL, and for the full season, Ramos has posted a 110 RC+, which is his best at any level since his 25-game cameo in Double A at the tail end of the 2019 season. With Pollock gone for at least three weeks and Mitch Haniger not expected back before September, now seems like a real opportunity, if not the last best opportunity, for Ramos to show that he can be a contributor at the big league level.
As for Luciano, with only about six weeks to play in the season, this is going to put a real dent in the remainder of his season, as the recovery frame for hamstrings, like all soft tissue strains, tends to be measured in weeks rather than days. Certainly, after also starting the season late, he once again won’t be getting too close to the 100 games played mark. Luciano’s all time high in games played is only 106, back in the 2021 season, and he’s now played just 133 in the two years since then. You sure would like to see him get a few more reps than that at his age. This makes Luciano a prime candidate for a return trip to the Arizona Fall League.
And speaking of potential end of year injuries, Marc Delucchi reported yesterday that Rayner Arias’ injury that he suffered at the end of June was a wrist sprain — which honestly is lot less severe than some other outcomes of that play might have been. As has always been suspected, he’s not likely to play the rest of the season (which is less than two more weeks for the DSL), but he’ll be good to go by instructs and should suffer no long term ill effects. He seems like a reasonably good bet to be the #1 prospect in this system in the not-too-distant future.
HITTER of the NIGHT: Bryce Eldridge (ACLGO), 1 for 4, HR (2), 3 RBI
PITCHER of the NIGHT: Spencer Bivens (Rich), 3.1 IP, 0 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 6 K
There wasn’t a ton of offense across the system last night (as the Hitter of the Night line might suggest), but we did see a lot of examples of strong defense. I got to see some of the best of that, courtesy of the All Star, Cedric Mullins. Scouts talk about the value in “recalibrating” your eyes after watching a lot of minor league or low level games. Getting to enjoy Mullins for a couple of nights has been a valuable recalibration for me, because he’s really operating on a different level even from the very good defensive outfielders I’ve seen this year — never in a hurry, always seems completely aware of exactly where he is and where he needs to be. There’s just a different kind of dude playing the game at that top level.
I mention this in part because it was a really impressive play, but in part because I’ve heard a lot of disenchanted chatter about Luis Matos’ defensive work this week and questions as to whether he’s a real CF. I will just add to that that I believe he is, he’s just not a very confident young man right now, and confidence is just as important on the defensive side of things as it is on offense. He’s 21, he’s never played in stadiums with a third level on them prior to a couple of months ago, and he’s still searching for that elusive belief that he can hang at that level. Matos’ relative lack of power is always going to make him a difficult profile on a corner, so letting him feel his way into being a confident CF is an important part of this year’s development. He’s got the ability. It’ll all come with time and work, hopefully.
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