Back with SF Giants, Casey Schmitt has a new trick to crack big-league pitching
SAN FRANCISCO — An ill-timed shave meant Casey Schmitt arrived in the heavily mustachioed home clubhouse at Oracle Park lacking the facial hair to match most of his teammates. It was another recent addition to his face that could be more meaningful.
“The prescription is, like, minus-7.5, I think it is,” Schmitt said, turning to his locker and grabbing a packet of disposable contact lenses. “It’s not very significant. Just enough to kind of (help) at night. It was getting a little chippy.”
Getting the start at shortstop Friday night with Nick Ahmed (wrist) placed on the 10-day injured list, the change for Schmitt should be invisible to the viewing public but could make all the difference at the plate, where he struggled to keep up with major-league pitching toward the tail end of his rookie year.
“I wasn’t really seeing spin,” Schmitt said. “Now, I’m able to see it a lot better.”
Schmitt’s teammate, Blake Sabol, plays with eyeglasses and the 25-year-old infielder said he considered taking measures to correct his vision but it wasn’t until about two weeks into the season that he visited an eye doctor and was prescribed contact lenses for his mild nearsightedness.
“I was fine with how it was,” Schmitt said, “but I wanted that extra thing to help me out even more.”
In 33 games with Triple-A Sacramento, Schmitt was batting .276 with five home runs, six doubles and a .768 OPS with 10 walks to 32 strikeouts. What effect his new eyewear will have remains to be seen — he started heating up with a two-homer game on April 14 — but his production put him in line to get the call when a need arose at the big-league level.
With Ahmed, the Giants’ starting shortstop, set to miss at least the next week and a half with a sprained wrist he aggravated Thursday in Colorado, the Giants opted for Schmitt, 25, over Marco Luciano, so that they could “let Luci continue to play on an everyday basis,” manager Bob Melvin said.
Schmitt had been playing all over the infield for the River Cats, mostly ceding shortstop to Luciano except once or so a week, and offers Melvin more positional flexibility in the interim.
Ahmed will be eligible to return next Sunday, but Melvin indicated he might require a longer absence. He was struck by a line drive while playing defense in Philadelphia, then aggravated the injury on a swing Thursday in Colorado and was lifted from the game.
“He’d been dealing with a little bit of soreness day to day with it, but it was that swing that put it over the top,” Melvin said. “There’s going to be a period of time where he doesn’t do anything, and then ramp back up. It could be a couple weeks.”
More immediately, catcher Patrick Bailey is “on target” to be activated from concussion protocol when he is eligible Saturday, Melvin said.
Schmitt’s contact lenses weren’t the only new cranial accessory in the clubhouse.
After suffering two concussions in the span of seven months, Bailey decided to switch up catchers masks, trading in his traditional two-piece model that strapped over a protective helmet for a hockey-style mask with “enforced padding,” according to Melvin.
“So it’s supposedly a little bit safer,” the manager, a former catcher, said.
Bailey was on the receiving end of approximately 30 pitches from Blake Snell, providing the Giants a two-for-one of positive health developments.
The next step for Snell, after his bullpen session “looked really good,” according to Melvin, will be a rehab outing Sunday with Single-A San Jose.
“There was just a crispness to it that we weren’t seeing before,” Melvin said of Snell’s pregame bullpen. “The velo was way better in the bullpen as well. He looked more balanced. The breaking ball was sharper. It was pretty encouraging.”
Notable
— OF Jung Hoo Lee (toe) was held out of the lineup for a second consecutive game but was “better today than he was yesterday,” Melvin said. Austin Slater started in place of the rookie center fielder, who fouled a pitch off his toe Wednesday in Colorado.