Luciano, 22, is expected to be the Giants' starting shortstop, at least until Nick Ahmed is ready to return.
SAN FRANCISCO — Bob Melvin perched himself on the top step of the third-base dugout Saturday morning and directed his gaze toward shortstop. Marco Luciano was fielding ground balls while Nick Ahmed made throws to first base, wearing a black brace where his glove would typically be on his left wrist.
As long as Ahmed, 34, remains out, the Giants manager intends to get a good look at the 22-year-old still considered the organization’s shortstop of the future.
“We patched it together with Casey (Schmitt) for a few days and Casey did a nice job,” Melvin said. “But if Marco’s going to be here, Marco’s going to play some shortstop. That’s why he’s here.”
Amid the Giants’ recent rash of injuries, Luciano was one of the last players on the 40-man roster who remained at Triple-A Sacramento. Initially when Ahmed was placed on the injured list, the club called up Schmitt, who played serviceable defense and provided a clutch hit but otherwise went 3-for-22 (.136) in six games.
Prior to this season, injuries limited Luciano to only 74 games and fewer than 300 at-bats between the upper two levels of the minor leagues, and the Giants wanted to get him as much seasoning as possible. As injuries piled up and Luciano’s production improved, it became untenable to keep him down any longer.
“It was a chance to give him a few more reps, but we feel like it’s a good time to get him out there and give him a good shot at this job,” president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said. “We brought him up with the thought that at some point here we were going to get him in the lineup and get him some run at shortstop…Really we think every game he plays kind of builds his case as a major-league shortstop.”
All 32 of Luciano’s games in the field at Triple-A this season came at shortstop, where the club maintains a belief he can stick for the long haul.
Making his first start Friday, Luciano ranged to his right and nabbed a ball in the hole but wasn’t able to complete the play for an out. He fielded a routine ground ball and nearly pulled LaMonte Wade Jr. off the bag at first base with his throw. He turned five ground balls into outs.
“Look, he’s put in a lot of work — a lot of work,” Melvin said. “At some point in time, if he’s going to be here, he’s going to play shortstop. He’s the shortstop of the future here and he was the guy that was playing the most shortstop down there (at Sacramento).”
The consensus among evaluators has long been that Luciano’s bat is more advanced than his glove, but Zaidi said he was impressed by the strides Luciano had made at the plate this season for the River Cats that weren’t necessarily reflected in his .266 batting average or one home run in 128 at-bats.
In 158 plate appearances, Luciano had struck out 44 times and drawn 29 walks. The 18.4% walk rate was the highest of his career, while the 27.8% strikeout rate was his lowest since A-ball. His refined two-strike approach paid dividends in his final at-bat Friday night, poking a slider into right field for his first career RBI.
“We really like the approach,” Zaidi said. “That was something we saw him improve a lot last year. When we saw him up in the big leagues we thought his at-bat quality was good, better than sometimes you expect for a guy coming up for the first time. He’s continued that down there and is having quality at-bats. I’ve watched a lot of Sacramento’s games and been impressed with that.
“The home runs, he’s got so much power, that will come. If he can carry that at-bat quality up here, I think he’s got a chance to get on a roll.”
What that could mean when Ahmed is ready to return is still to be determined.
Before suffering the left wrist strain that has kept him out since last Friday, Ahmed was batting only .236/.274/.291 but had provided some timely hits from the bottom of the lineup and generally lived up to his Gold Glove reputation defensively, rating in the 97th percentile with plus-4 Outs Above Average.
Ahmed won’t travel with the team when it leaves for its next road trip but plans to begin to ramp up his baseball activity while the Giants are in Pittsburgh and New York and could be nearing a rehab assignment by the time they return home.
In the meantime, Luciano will receive the same shot as his fellow prospects, Luis Matos and Heliot Ramos, who made up two-thirds of the Giants’ outfield after injuries to Michael Conforto and Jung Hoo Lee.
“It’s definitely the plan, and it’s been a lot of fun,” Zaidi said. “It’s been a lot of fun to see Ramos and Matos to come up and play well… You almost start looking at the back end of this (string of injuries) when we’ve got to start picking who can stay on this roster and who can we continue to find at-bats for.”
