SACRAMENTO–The last member of the Sacramento River Cats to toss a complete game was Giants’ rookie Ty Blach, who accomplished the feat on August 17, 2015 when Blach was still working his way through San Francisco’s organization.
On Saturday evening, Giants’ pitching prospect Andrew Suarez came close to matching Blach’s feat, but after recording one out in the top of the ninth inning, Suarez allowed a pair of hits and was pulled from the game with his team ahead 1-0.
With the Giants in Washington, D.C. this weekend, I drove up to Sacramento to watch Suarez pitch after San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy offered high praise for the franchise’s No. 11 prospect following his last start.
Entering Saturday’s outing, Suarez had logged 21 innings over his last three starts, and surrendered just 15 hits and three earned runs while striking out a batter per inning over that stretch. Even though he’s spent just over two years in the Giants’ Minor League system, Suarez has clearly made a strong case for a September call-up, and his Saturday evening performance was no exception.
Against the Salt Lake Bees, the AAA-affiliate of the Los Angeles Angeles, Suarez was dominant, stretching out for a career-high 8.1 innings, allowing six hits, and two earned runs while striking out eight hitters. In a hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League that was described to me as “a flyball league” by one River Cats’ reliever, Suarez induced nine groundball outs and two of the hits he gave up didn’t leave the infield.
Simply put, Salt Lake had no answer for Suarez’s “stuff,” which he pounded into the strike zone throughout the night.
The two runs that were charged to Suarez’s ledger came when reliever Tyler Rogers surrendered a three-run home run on an 0-2 pitch with two outs in the ninth inning. it was the type of 0-2 mistake that has troubled Giants’ pitchers at the Major League level all season, and it forced Suarez to take the ‘L’ on a night when he was clearly the best player on the field.
After 8.1 innings on Saturday, Suarez has now thrown 136.2 frames this season, and with at least three to four more turns in the rotation before Sacramento’s season ends, it’s possible Suarez will throw somewhere between 160 and 170 innings this year. That’s a considerable total for one of the franchise’s most prized pitching prospects, and teams are always cautious with young hurlers who endure a lot of stress over the course of their first few professional seasons.
Still, I traveled to Sacramento to see if Suarez could help the Giants in the near future, and there’s no doubt in my mind that he can.
“I mean, I’m not focused on that right now,” Suarez said, when I asked if he felt close to Major League ready. “I’m just focusing on my starts and if it happens it happens, but it doesn’t matter to me.”
There are a few skills Suarez could polish. Manager Dave Brundage said he wants to see Suarez be more consistent with throwing his off-speed pitches for strikes, and said Suarez and the Giants’ top prospect, Chris Shaw, could just use more seasoning at the AAA level considering they weren’t promoted until the middle of the year.
But given Matt Moore’s struggles in the Giants’ rotation, Johnny Cueto’s lingering injuries, and the uncertainty over who will serve as the franchise’s fifth starter in 2017, I believe it would behoove San Francisco to take a look at Suarez in September, even if he just pitches in a relief role.
Of course, the Giants don’t have a 40-man roster spot readily available for Suarez, and this offseason, there’s a handful of players like River Cats’ relievers Tyler Rogers, D.J. Snelten and Dusten Knight who may all be worthy of consideration for 40-man spots, so that the organization can protect them from the Rule 5 Draft.
By holding Suarez in Sacramento for the remainder of the year, the Giants wouldn’t start the clock on his Major League service time, which gives them more contractual flexibility in the future, and preserves an additional spot for a player that another team could claim. Clearly, there’s no shortage of reasons to keep Suarez away from San Francisco this season.
Ultimately, though, San Francisco general manager Bobby Evans and manager Bruce Bochy have both spoken this season about the importance of putting a winning product on the field, and it’s increasingly clear that Suarez can contribute to a winning club in 2018.
In the ninth inning of Saturday’s game, Suarez’s fastball consistently hovered at 93 miles per hour, even as he surpassed the 100-pitch plateau. He rarely fell behind in the count, and when he did, Suarez quickly recovered. Nothing phased him in the outing that I saw, and I was told by a number of different folks who’ve watched him pitch this season that Suarez is remarkably even-keeled, regardless of how he performs.
I asked a few different people how Suarez compares to Blach, and there’s a belief that Suarez has the same demeanor on the mound, but with better stuff and a greater ceiling. Is Suarez going to be a top end of the rotation arm? In all likelihood, he won’t be. But he’s a strike thrower with good life to his fastball who has complimentary breaking pitches and the mentality to attack Major League hitters. There’s a spot for him in a Major League rotation, and it could come rather soon.
Even if Suarez doesn’t want to admit it, he’s built a tremendous case for a September call-up. A with all of the uncertainty surrounding the Giants’ rotation in 2018, the franchise could benefit from watching Suarez perform against Major League hitters, no matter how small the sample size.