Photo credit: SF Bay News Lab
By Vince Cestone
The San Francisco Giants defeated the Sultanes de Monterrey of the Mexican League 10-2 on Monday night in their second-to-last spring training game at Oracle Park.
Even though the Giants were playing a non-major league team, it’s important for them to play good baseball–and that they did.
The Giants opened the scoring in the third inning with three runs against Sultanes starting pitcher Stephen Tarpley. Tarpley was most-recently in the Mets organization in 2021. Giants first baseman Casey Schmitt, who went 2-for-3 on Monday night, started the inning with a single. After catcher Patrick Bailey hit a ground ball base hit in between first and second, Schmitt advanced to third.
Then came up roster hopeful Jared Oliva, who came into the game hitting .375 for the spring. Oliva executed a an RBI bunt single to give the Giants their first run. The Giants scored after the very next batter Luis Arraez grounded into a fielder’s choice, but a throwing error by Sultanes shortstop Coco Montes allowed the second run to come in. The Giants got their third run later in the inning after right fielder Jung Hoo Lee hit a ground ball double just inside first.
The Giants tacked on another run in the fifth inning with the help of another throwing error by Montes off the bat of Matt Chapman.
The Sultanes scored their only two runs in the fifth inning on an RBI single by designated hitter Ramiro Pena and another RBI single by Josh Lester.
Then, the Giants played home run derby. Shortstop Willy Adames led off the sixth with a home run off of Sultanes pitcher Jake Higginbotham. But an encouraging sign came off the bat of Giants top prospect Bryce Eldridge, who launched a booming, opposite-field three-run homer to make the score 8-2 in the eighth inning. Eldridge had recently been sent down to the minor leagues and will start the season in Triple-A Sacramento. Tyler Fitzgerald followed with a two-run home run two batters later.
On the pitching side, nine Giants pitchers threw one inning each. All San Francisco pitchers threw scoreless innings, except for Carson Seymour, who gave up two runs and four hits in his inning of work. Spencer Bivens, who started the game, Tristan Beck, and Marques Johnson each had two strikeouts and no walks in their innings. Caleb Killian, who is opening eyes in spring training, pitched a perfect fifth inning. In 9 1/3 innings pitched in spring training, Killian came into the game with a 0.96 ERA and 11 strikeouts.
Up next, the Giants will conclude their Cactus League schedule on Tuesday night against the Sultanes once again. First pitch is at 6:45 p.m. The Giants will open the regular season on Wednesday night against the New York Yankees at Oracle Park. Game time will be 5:05 p.m.
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