© Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
SCOTTSDALE — The San Francisco Giants lost 5-4 to the Cleveland Indians on Monday afternoon, but that wasn’t the worst part of Bruce Bochy’s day.
That came before the game, when he had to sit 15 of his players down and tell them they were either being optioned to Triple-A Sacramento or reassigned to minor league camp.
There’s no telling whether the outcome of the game would have started Bochy’s week off any better, but the skipper said, “this is not a good day.”
Derek Law, Mac Williamson, and Tyler Beede headlined the group of five players optioned to Triple-A, along with Roberto Gomez and Austin Slater. The remaining 10 — Andrew Suarez, Joan Gregorio, Jose Valdez, Justin O’Conner, Trevor Brown, Hector Sanchez, Orlando Calixte, Chase d’Arnaud, Kyle Jensen, and Chris Shaw — were all reassigned to minor league camp.
“Even the guys who went down, I told them, ‘you never know what’s going to happen at this point,’” Bochy said. “There’s still disappointment and they need to get over that because things can change.”
All were understandably disappointed; especially Williamson, who after a long pause said, “I think this organization has done a good job of putting the right guys on the field and putting guys in the position to have success.
“I think that the way this roster is constructed, the way they put it together, they have all the right pieces to be successful,” Williamson added. “I don’t think it’s any secret who the starting corner outfielders are and I don’t think it would’ve mattered if I hit 1.000 this spring. I don’t think that’s what they were looking for me to do, nor was I looking to do that.”
Williamson didn’t hit 1.000, but he did hit .318, which was second only to Kyle Jensen among players who appeared in 20-plus appearances this spring. His revamped swing helped Williamson to four home runs, two doubles, and two triples in Arizona.
“I feel like I really had a lot of opportunity to work on my new swing and I got a lot of opportunity to try and fine-tune some stuff,” Williamson said. “I look forward to continue to do that here in the next couple months.”
Of those remaining players, Bochy praised what he’s seen from Trevor Brown. Brown is only hitting .120 in 14 games this spring, but his throwing arm has shown significant improvement, as seen in the ninth inning of Monday’s game when he threw out two runners.
“I’ve told him, he’s done a really good job with catching,” Bochy said. “I think his confidence has grown so much with the way he’s throwing. I don’t know what he’s hitting, but he’s given at-bats. This has been a good spring for him.”
Keaton Moore is a KNBR.com contributor, follow Keaton on Twitter at @KeatonAMoore