San Francisco Giants Notes 3/18: Morse, Federowicz, Osich,
The San Francisco Giants lost to the Colorado Rockies on Friday night, but there were a number of positives to take away from the game.
Michael Morse was a fan favorite during his one-year stint with the Giants in 2014, but he’s becoming a favorite to earn a job on the opening day roster this year. Morse was in left field for the first time this spring on Friday night, and while it wasn’t pretty and graceful, it wasn’t bad either. The big fellow did misplay a ball that fell in front of him for a basehit, but made a couple grabs on flyballs, including a ball toward the gap when Gorkys Hernandez slipped in center field to make it Morse’s ball.
Morse also continued to show good bat speed and an ability to square up and drive the ball. In the seventh inning, he drove a one-out double through the gap in right-center field. He was late on a fastball from Rockies’ pitcher Zach Jemiola earlier in the pitch, but caught up with this one and hit a rocket over the second baseman’s head. He was pulled for a pinch-runner, Orlando Calixte, who would go on to score the Giants’ only run of the day.
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The ever popular Morse may no longer be an everyday option in left field (and in all honestly, he wasn’t much of a left fielder back in 2014 anyway), but he is making quite a case to be a power threat off the bench. Getting him on to the 40-man roster will be difficult, however, especially if the team decides to keep another non-roster infielder, like Aaron Hill. But for now, we can just enjoy Morse’s presence as a Giant.
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With Nick Hundley signed to be the Giants’ backup catcher and Trevor Brown also on the 40-man roster, Tim Federowicz has an extremely difficult uphill battle to making the big league team at any point this season. When he was first brought in December, it seemed he would have a chance to compete with Brown for the backup job, but he’s been relegated to competing for playing time in Sacramento.
Buster Posey is still with Team USA for the World Baseball Classic (he hit a long solo home run on Friday), and Federowicz has gotten plenty of playing time in his absence. And very quietly, the 29-year-old veteran is putting together quite a solid spring.
On Friday, Federowicz kept the Giants alive in the ninth inning, smoking a double to right-center field with two outs. That two-bagger was his team-leading fifth of the year, and he upped his average to .375 in Cactus League play. He also showed off his cannon of an arm, something for which he has been known throughout his brief major league stints, throwing out Derrik Gibson as he attempted to steal second base in the ninth.
Having veteran catcher depth in the organization is never a bad thing, and it seems the Giants have a capable one in Federowicz. He’s always hit minor league pitching well, owning a career .290/.354/.461 slash-line.
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Josh Osich continues to work towards putting a rough 2016 campaign behind him, and he took great steps forward on Friday. His sinker was dropping off the table as much as it ever has, and his changeup looked like a legitimate swing-and-miss offering. The left-hander started his inning with a strikeout on Cristhian Adames, and then got three subsequent groundballs.
Normally for a sinkerball pitcher, getting that many groundballs would make for a quick, easy outing. Unfortunately for Osich, his defense did him no favors. Two of those groundballs resulted in errors, and resulted in a run being scored when a passed ball was added to the mix.
But the way those balls were hit should be encouraging. The first one, a fielding error by Conor Gillaspie, was a chopper that looked like a pretty easy out. The second one, a ball that rolled under shortstop Christian Arroyo‘s glove, was hit very slowly and, while it may have resulted in a hit anyway, would have at least made for a close play had it been fielded cleanly.
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All in all, this was as good as Osich has looked in a long time. He threw first-pitch strikes to each of the first three batters he faced, and threw 15 of his 21 pitches for strikes. Control was an achilles heel for Osich last season and in the very early parts of Spring Training this year, but he has been much more in control in recent outings. This looks more like the Osich that was outstanding for the Giants in 2015.