Latest crop of SF Giants call-ups give them two attributes they have sorely lacked

The Giants don’t hit the ball hard or run fast, but Marco Luciano and Tyler Fitzgerald do

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The San Francisco Giants aren’t particularly quick. They do not strike the ball hard. They’re slow, and the contact they make is often as well.

It is not difficult to imagine that this has not been a fruitful combination. Teams that do not hit home runs can still score runs on the base paths. Station-to-station players can quickly clear the bases with a single swing of the bat. The Giants don’t do either, and they’ll most likely be sitting at home this October.

If there is one silver lining to their spectacular collapse, it is that the final week of the season can serve as a showcase for many of the 12 prospects who graduated from the minor leagues and made their major-league debuts this season. And some of these players have the qualities that the Giants have lacked for much of the season.

Marco Luciano has three hits in two games since being called up, all of which have left the bat at 105 mph or higher. Luciano has hit three of the Giants’ four hardest-hit balls in the last two games, including a 111.8 mph single up the middle for his second hit Friday night.

“We don’t have guys who hit the ball that hard very often,” said manager Gabe Kapler.

In fact, the Giants only have one player who has hit the ball that hard all year: Joc Pederson. The Nationals are the only team with fewer balls in play at 110 mph or higher.

They also don’t have anyone, not even Thairo Estrada, their leading base stealer, who can match Tyler Fitzgerald’s speed, who made his major-league debut Thursday night. It didn’t take him long to show it off.

Despite only playing in the outfield 23 times this year before moving to center field for the first three games of his MLB career, he closed enough ground on a ball into the gap to nearly make one of the Giants’ defensive plays of the year. The ball kicked out of his glove when his diving body hit the ground after racing from center nearly all the way to Mike Yastrzemski in right, resulting in a triple.

Yastrzemski, who had to chase after the ball as it rolled away, said he was “in awe that he even got to that ball.”

“That’s what I had mostly heard about him, that he can really run,” Yastrzemski said. “He showed it off on that play.”

By average sprint speed, the Giants are the third-slowest team in the majors, trailing only the Yankees and the White Sox. No other team has stolen more bases.

Fitzgerald, on the other hand, intends to change that. He has had 20-20 seasons in each of his last two minor league seasons.

“I like to think I’ll be aggressive,” he says. “We’ll see what happens.” But I’m going to try to get a couple.”