LOS ANGELES — Bryce Eldridge, less than a week into his major-league career, remains in search of his first hit. That milestone, among others, should come in due time. While still batting .000, Eldridge has shown small glimpses of the promise that made him one of baseball’s top prospects.
“His at-bats have been good,” said manager Bob Melvin of the Giants’ top prospect. “We’d love for him to get his first hit and get that out of the way, but he has not looked overmatched.”
Eldridge has struck out in five of his 10 plate appearances entering Friday, his only time reaching base so far being a walk in Wednesday’s win against the Diamondbacks. Of the four times he’s put the ball in play, he’s generated exit velocities of 105.9 mph, 105.2 mph, 102.4 mph and 99.0 mph. Baseball Savant categories balls in play at least 95 mph or faster as hard hit.
Eldridge won’t continue to post an average exit velocity of 103.1 mph — Oneil Cruz leads the league at 95.7 mph — but it’s been a peak at Eldridge’s elite raw power. To look at a much larger sample, Eldridge posted elite batted-ball data with Triple-A Sacramento, being in the 95th percentile or better in barrel rate (95th), average exit velocity (97th) and hard-hit rate (98th) per Prospect Savant.
In his third career plate appearance, Eldridge inside-outed a four-seam fastball from the Diamondbacks’ Taylor Rashi. At 407 feet, Eldridge’s line drive would’ve been a home run in 23 of 30 ballparks. Unfortunately for Eldridge, he was playing in one of the seven stadiums where it wouldn’t clear the fences. Center fielder Jorge Barrosa tracked it down, and Eldridge’s search for his first hit continued.
There was also Thursday, when Eldridge had his first plate appearance against a left-handed pitcher when he stepped to the plate to face the Dodgers’ Jack Dreyer. With the count at 2-2, Dreyer elevated a slider that Eldridge smashed — right into the awaiting glove of right fielder Teoscar Hernández.
As impressive as those small displays of pop has been Eldridge’s ability to resist pitches out of the zone.
Eldridge’s first two at-bats in the majors came against right-hander Zac Gallen, a one-time All-Star with an assortment of secondaries. Gallen’s plan against Eldridge was simple: spam him with changeups. Gallen did get Eldridge to whiff on three pitches, but the rookie had some impressive takes on borderline changeups that just missed the zone.
“I think that’s a good start facing a guy like him,” Eldridge said after his major-league debut. “I had fun. He had a good plan against me, and it as fun to get to face him and I felt like I belonged. I feel like I competed and did my best.”
Said Melvin after Eldridge’s debut: “Too bad he didn’t get the one hit there but certainly he didn’t look like he was overmatched. Didn’t look nervous. I’m sure there were some nerves there but he looks pretty hitterish at the plate.”
Given Eldridge’s offensive profile, there will likely always be a fair amount of strikeouts and whiffs in his game.
Over 1082 games in the minors, Eldridge had a strikeout rate of 27.1 percent, partially the product of an equally high whiff rate. With Triple-A Sacramento, Eldridge had a whiff rate of 33.7 percent per Prospect Savant, placing him in the 21st percentile.
Strikeout rates and whiff rates generally remain consistent throughout a player’s career. With rare exceptions, a high strikeout/whiff player rarely evolves into a low strikeout/whiff player. But if Eldridge consistently taps into his power, the Giants will be able to live with the swings and misses.
“There’s probably going to be some swing and miss but he’s also going to make some really loud contact as well,” said president of baseball operations Buster Posey, who began his career going 2-for-17.
The majority of Eldridge’s plate appearances for the remainder of the season will be against right-handers, not left-handers. All three of Eldridge’s starts have been at designated hitter — Melvin said Eldridge could get a look at first base soon — on days where a right-handed pitcher has started.
When left-hander Anthony Banda entered for the eighth inning on Thursday, Melvin substituted Eldridge for Wilmer Flores. When Clayton Kershaw made the final regular season start of career on Friday, Eldridge was relegated to watching from the first-base dugout instead of testing himself against the future Hall of Famer.
Eldridge struggled against lefties in the minors last season, posting a .211/.272/.316 with three home runs over 114 at-bats. This season, by contrast, Eldridge had a .267/.327/.489 slash line with four home runs over 90 at-bats against left-handers in the minors.
Melvin said Flores, who has a career .787 OPS against left-handers, is going to play against lefties for now. Next season, Eldridge will likely get far more opportunities to face same-sided pitchers.
The sample is incredibly small, but Eldridge has shown himself capable of holding his own against major-league pitching. Over the next week, he’ll have his opportunities to show himself capable of damaging major-league pitching.
Worth noting
Trevor McDonald will start for the Giants on Sunday.
Carson Whisenhunt (back strain) could pitch during the Giants’ final homestand of the season after pitching 1 2/3 innings on Tuesday in a rehab start.