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<\/p>\nThe reeling San Francisco Giants, sitting in last place in the NL West and coming off a winless road trip to Philadelphia and Tampa Bay, are poised to shake up the league\u2019s least productive lineup.<\/p>\n
Starved for both patience and power, the Giants plan to promote top prospect Bryce Eldridge, along with contact-hitting catcher Jesus Rodriguez from Triple-A Sacramento ahead of a home series against the San Diego Padres, a league source told The Athletic on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The San Francisco Chronicle was the first to report the Giants\u2019 shake-up.<\/p>\n
Eldridge, 21, is the franchise\u2019s highest-touted hitting prospect since current president of baseball operations Buster Posey debuted in 2009. The 6-foot-7 first baseman collected two hits and two walks Saturday night at Salt Lake, raising his average to .333 with a .445 on-base percentage. Eldridge also has struck out 41 times in 114 at-bats and Giants officials were hoping to see some progress with what otherwise portends to be a troublesome issue against major-league pitching. But they are 13-21 and already seven games off the pace for the third and final NL wild-card spot and their poor start demands action.<\/p>\n
The Giants weren\u2019t credited with a home run in six games against the Phillies and Rays \u2014 Heliot Ramos hit a controversial flyout to center field on Saturday that most likely hit a catwalk in the Tropicana Field roof infrastructure, which is a home run according to local ground rules \u2014 and the lack of impact hits was a primary reason that they got skunked on a two-city road trip for the first time since 2022. The Giants\u2019 19 home runs are the fewest in the major leagues.<\/p>\n
Just as concerning is their major league-low 69 walks, which distantly trails even the 29th-ranked team (the Arizona Diamondbacks, with 87). Eldridge\u2019s 20 walks at Sacramento, which is nearly half of his total spanning three levels last season, might be just as alluring as his power potential.<\/p>\n
The Giants could start Eldridge at designated hitter against the Padres \u2014 who have three right-handers in Randy V\u00e1squez, Walker Buehler and Matt Waldron lined up to start in San Francisco \u2014 and keep Rafael Devers at first base, where he\u2019s looked more comfortable in recent weeks. They could use hot-hitting Casey Schmitt to spell struggling shortstop Willy Adames as well as third baseman Matt Chapman, who has hit just one home run this season. Devers, Chapman and Adames combined to go 9-for-66 (.136) while the Giants averaged 1.5 runs during the six road games, which included a pair of walk-off losses in a doubleheader Thursday at Citizens Bank Park.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Jesus Rodriguez was batting .330 with two homers and four steals for the River Cats. (Mark J. Rebilas \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n
Rodriguez, 24, is coming off a three-hit game Saturday that raised his average to .330 with a .400 on-base percentage. A right-handed hitter with preternatural contact skills, Rodriguez has more walks (12) than strikeouts (11) against Triple-A pitching while hitting two home runs and five doubles. He\u2019s stolen four bases as well and demonstrated all spring that he\u2019s opportunistic and aggressive on the basepaths.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez, who came to the Giants last July from the New York Yankees as part of the package for former All-Star closer Camilo Doval, has started 16 games behind the plate, five in left field and two at second base. His presence on the roster spells trouble for Patrick Bailey, the two-time reigning NL Gold Glove winner whose highly meager offensive contributions are becoming less tolerable in a struggling lineup of out-makers.<\/p>\n
Bailey, who has a minor-league option remaining, also found himself at the center of a controversy on Thursday when both games of the doubleheader tilted in two extremely odd at-bats. Right-hander Ryan Walker threw nine consecutive two-seam fastballs to Bryson Stott, who hit a tying triple in the ninth inning of Game 1. Then Keaton Winn threw seven consecutive splitters to Kyle Schwarber, who hit a tying double in the ninth inning of Game 2.<\/p>\n
The Giants also have a potential move to make on the pitching side. Thanks to Thursday\u2019s doubleheader and their decision to start right-hander Adrian Houser in the second game, they do not have a rested starting pitcher for Monday\u2019s series opener against the Padres. Left-hander Carson Whisenhunt was a candidate, but he pitched five innings for the River Cats on Sunday. Right-hander Blade Tidwell was just optioned on Wednesday and cannot return unless he replaces an injured pitcher. So it could be right-hander Trevor McDonald, who isn\u2019t subject to the 15-day waiting period for optioned pitchers because he served as the bonus 27th player for Game 2 on Thursday. McDonald, who flew on a redeye from Salt Lake City to Philadelphia, wasn\u2019t used and the Giants returned him to Sacramento\u2019s roster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The reeling San Francisco Giants, sitting in last place in the NL West and coming off a winless…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":771642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2084,1266,1275,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-771641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-fantasy-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-san-francisco-giants","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}