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    Jose Garcia (Photo: Doug Gray)
    Photo: Doug Gray

    Reds prospect Jose Garcia homers twice on Tuesday

    Doug Gray 17

    The game didn’t exactly go well for most of the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday afternoon in their loss to the Los Angels Angels. But if you are Jose Garcia – things went very well. The Reds #4 prospect got the start at shortstop for Cincinnati on the day, and after grounding out in his first at-bat he homered in his second one. With the wind blowing in he opened up and put one onto the berm in left field.

    Just before that home run he had made a diving play to snag a line drive in the field. And later in the game he again showed off his defensive abilities, ranging towards third base and making a strong accurate throw across the diamond to show off both his range and arm.

    The Cuban-born shortstop wasn’t finished at the plate, though. He came back up to the plate in the 7th inning and worked a 2-2 count before he got a letter high fastball and just unloaded on it, putting another souvenir onto the left-field berm at the Angels home ballpark.

    Three at-bats. Two home runs. From a 21-year-old quality defensive shortstop. That will work for Jose Garcia. And I’m sure the Reds personnel checking in would say it works for them, too.

    When the Reds signed Garcia for $5,000,000 after he defected from Cuba in 2017 they were hoping that they were signing their future shortstop. He was an athletic 19-year-old at the time who had tools to work with. He had some struggled out of the gate in 2018 with the Dayton Dragons, but after shoulder surgery following the season he broke out at the plate in 2019 with the Advanced-A Daytona Tortugas. Despite missing the first three weeks of the season he would go on to lead all of Advanced-A (three different leagues) with 37 doubles while posting a 131 OPS+ in the Florida State League.

    Other prospect performances

    Ryan Lillie came on in relief of Jose De Leon in the bottom of the 1st inning. He would allow two runs in his 1.1 innings of work. But he also struck out big leaguers Jason Castro and Shohei Ohtani. Jesus Reyes was charged with an unearned run in 1.1 innings while also picking up two strikeouts. Alex Powers, Matt Pidich, and Brandon Finnegan all threw shutout innings of relief.

    At the plate the Reds only managed five hits, and we’ve already talked about two of them. Shogo Akiyama had one of them – an infield single off of the pitchers glove. The other two hits that weren’t from Jose Garcia did go to a pair of minor leaguers. Brantley Bell singled in his lone at-bat and later scored. Alfredo Rodriguez took over for Garcia at shortstop and went 1-1, giving the shortstops three hits on the day.

    You can see the entire box score for the game right here.

    Doug Gray
    Doug Gray is the owner and operator of this website and has been running it since 2006 in one variation or another.

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    17 Responses

      1. I’d play Blandino at SS. He’s the most likely to get called up if Galvis is injured or unable to play and it would be him or Farmer starting.

    4. very good to see Garcia have a good game. He could be our starting ss in 2021 if he has a good year this year. Good to see he wasn’t overmatched. Pray for health.

    5. 2nd half of last season in 63 games, .295/.360/.451with 5 HR and 12 SB in 14 tries. That while in the FSL. If puts that up over a full season, he’s going to turn a lot of heads this year.

      1. Following Garcia, Tyler Stephenson, Lodolo and Hunter Greene will be much fun this year if these 4 have good years it will go along way in keeping the ML teams window of competitive baseball open. A bonus would be India.

    6. Met Garcia at Dayton and he is a quality kid. Unlike many of the other Latin kids he he was studying English before he got there. In 1970 the Reds took a chance on a young Latin 21 year old when they had a veteran shortstop in place. That one worked out pretty well. Don’t think that will happen here but Galvis should feel a little push.

    7. Besides the obvious athleticism, what impressed me most about Garcia was the pitch recognition. He spit on some decent offspeed pitches in order to get the fastball he wanted. That says as much about his future potential than just ambushing the pitcher looking for a single pitch in your zone. Very excited about this kid.

      Even better than India and TStephenson batted around him—a nice glimpse of the future. That said, India is trade bait for me.

      1. Are there any players that were left on the board by the Reds in the 2018 first round that are doing better than India?

        I just looked at the list and no one stands out—but it’s early.

        1. I think Grayson Rodriguez is a player the Reds wanted at a discount to spread money to the 2nd pick. He’s doing really well. Kelenic is another HS player that I’m envious of, but their both HS players that have a long road to proving themselves.

        2. Thanks, Tom.

          So there are couple, but doesn’t look like 2018 was stuffed with talent in the first round. So the Reds would seem to be doing all right with India, liking at the overall scope.

        3. India taken 5th and not in Fangraphs top 100
          Kelenic 6th – 11th rated prospect per Fangraphs
          Ryan Weathers 7th – Outside the top 100
          Carter Stewart 8th – Unsigned
          Kyler Murray 9th – In the NFL
          Travis Swaggerty 10th – 61st per Fangraphs
          Grayson Rodriguez 11th – 29th rated prospect.

          3 of the 4 players signed and playing that were taken immediately after India are now top 100 prospects and Weathers is just 20 and probably a better prospect than India. So time is telling us that India was a poor pick.

          I was never a fan of the India pick but loved the next 3 (Richardson/Gray/Siani) and felt they made up for the weak India pick. Unfortunately they gave up on Gray far too early.

        4. I don’t know if you can say it didn’t have talent. 10 of the 14 picks that signed and are still playing in the minors are in Fangraphs top 100.

          Outside of signing Kyler Murray I don’t know if the Reds could have done much worse than choosing India.

    8. Very hopeful by what we are seeing from Garcia here. He has the potential to be a difference making kind of guy. There Reds might be wanting to upgrade at catcher and SS this year, but man it’s encouraging to see in house potential upgrades just 1 or 2 years away. Developments like that can go a really long way to extending a competitive window. Garcia and T. Stephenson, along with the likes of Lodolo/Greene in the rotation can allow the Reds to spend $$ elsewhere to fill out the team or extend guys like Castillo and stay competitive longer

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