Ahoy, Futurians!  Welcome to a new season of Daily Minors Quick-Notes!  This season, Triple-A is starting ahead of every other league (including the Majors!), so our first few days will be just the Triple-A Game.  So I’ll go a bit more in-depth with Sacramento than I will usually most of the season, since I’ve got a bit more time.

There’s also something new at Triple-A!  The fantastic baseballsavant website will cover PCL games since they are installing everything needed for the Automatic Balls and Strikes system…even though the ABS won’t be calling balls and strikes until mid-May.  That means that we’ll have some of the most detailed pitch information to share, and other stats like exit velocities!  I’ll try to add these as appropriate for you!

Alright, onto our game of the Day for Opening Day.

AAA: Sacramento 7, Sugar Land 6

Link

Sacramento Notes:

  • Heliot Ramos finished with a pedestrian 1-for-4, but the one was a home run, plus a walk, and no strikeouts.  A very good start for Sacramento’s top prospect.  Savant tells us it was a 91.2 MPH pitch, hit 400 feet and had an exit velocity of 106.7 MPH.
  • David Villar set the Richmond Flying Squirrels single season home run record in 2021 with 20 home runs, and that was a shortened season.  He starts this year with both a home run and a walk-off RBI single.  His home run went 364 feet the other way, and left the bat with a 101.6 MPH exit velocity.
  • Ricardo Genovés spent most of 2021 in High-A, though he had a cameo in Sacramento, but got a big push.  He opens the season with a nice 1-for-2 with two walks, but also wasn’t able to corral a wild pitch that led to the game-tying run to come in in the 9th, which isn’t on the stat sheet.
  • Jaylin Davis became a bit of a forgotten guy in the Giants system, but he was 2-for-5 and scored three runs, including the game winner after getting on via an error.
  • Jakob Junis led a pitching group made entirely of free agent signings, and was to help back up their rotation, but had a rough first start, allowing five hits and two walks in 3.1 innings.  His fastball wasn’t reaching even 92 MPH, averaging 90.3 MPH, and got hit hard, with three of the top six hardest hit balls of the game coming off his pitches.
  • Luis Ortiz was the star pitcher of the day, giving up a hit to the first batter he faced after relieving Junis, but then getting out the next eight batters he faced.  Ortiz worked most with his fastball at 94.7 MPH, and his mid-80’s slider.
  • Matt Carasiti came in to close the game, making his first regular season appearance since 2019.  After the 2020 lost season, he missed 2021 after having Tommy John surgery.  He got two quick outs, but two singles and a HBP loaded the bases, and he threw a wild pitch that got by Genovés to let the game-tying run come in, which blew the save.  He got a strikeout to end the inning after an intentional walk.  Casati worked mostly with his sinker, and also had a forkball and cutter, according to Savant (first time doing Triple-A stats, so 🤔), but his sinker was up to 96.6 MPH.