BALTIMORE -- Rookie Giants catcher Daniel Susac wasn’t going to bat .750 forever. And if Sunday’s performance in a 6-2 loss to the Orioles represented the regression, it is still a pretty solid mean.
Susac knocked in the Giants’ first run on a seeing-eye single and impressively notched his first caught stealing in the bigs with a throw from his knees. And while it’s still an extremely small sample size, the Rule 5 Draft pick and Giants' No. 21 prospect appears at least capable of providing stability behind two-time Gold Glover Patrick Bailey.
“I’ve been feeling good,” Susac said. “Just tried that second at-bat to get one up the middle. Got on top of it a little bit, missed it a little bit. But when it’s going good, sometimes it’s going good. It snuck through.”
Giants DH Casey Schmitt homered off the foul pole and had a second three-hit day of the series, two nights after becoming the first Giants batter to hit three doubles in a game since 2020.
But until this set, it was Susac who had the Giants’ most three-hit games after going 6-for-7 with a triple and two RBIs in his first two big league starts.
And his pinch-hit appearance Saturday night against O’s closer Ryan Helsley -- before a 1-for-3 Sunday that dropped his slash line to a meager .636/.667/.818 -- also signaled manager Tony Vitello may be considering more ways to get him to the plate.
“There’s been games where we’ve really swung the bats well, and there’s been games where we’re searching for runs,” Vitello said. “So, if you’re searching and you’ve got a guy who can swing it a little bit, it certainly becomes more of an appealing option than normal.”
Yet on Sunday, it was the 24-year-old former Arizona Wildcat’s arm that really stood out.
In the second inning, Colton Cowser drew a one-out walk, then got a strong jump on a 2-2 fastball thrown through the top of the zone. Susac hit second baseman Christian Koss’ glove in stride, enabling a tag fractions ahead of Cowser’s headfirst slide.
“I think I really wanted to make sure of a strike first,” Susac said of remaining on his knees. “The pitch was pretty down the middle. And then he swung, so I was like, ‘Alright, make sure we get the strike on a 2-2 count.’ And the ball took me that way. But I’ll mix it up.”
The Orioles kept running on Susac, who caught 87 runners in 350 attempts in his Minor League career.
Gunnar Henderson successfully swiped second on a close play in the third inning. In the fifth, Taylor Ward was on the move as Pete Alonso doubled to left to plate two more Baltimore runs. In the sixth, Coby Mayo took off as Henderson struck out to end the inning and Susac made another spot-on throw.
“It’s been outstanding since Spring Training,” Vitello said of Susac’s arm. “He can throw from a lot of different angles, kind of like an infielder. He can throw from his knees. And the one didn’t count because we had struck the hitter out, but even that one was impressive.”
On a different day, the official scorer might have even credited Susac with breaking up Cade Povich’s no-hit bid in the fifth inning.
Instead, three batters after Schmitt’s sharp infield single off the glove of third baseman Mayo led off the frame and spoiled that bid, Susac muscled Povich’s 1-1 changeup up the middle to briefly close San Francisco’s deficit to 2-1.