Why the Giants Changed Course by Demotioning Marco Luciano to the Minor Leagues – NBC Sports Bay Area & California

SAN FRANCISCO — In the end, the New York Giants’ roster may have ended up in the right place. But once again, the team is facing a bad image.

Two weeks after the New York Giants traded Jorge Soler to the Atlanta Braves and announced that Marco Luciano would be the designated hitter, the 22-year-old is back in the minor leagues. Luciano had just 21 hits over seven games before being given an option Wednesday when center fielder Grant McCray was called up from Sacramento’s third-string team for the first time.

Once again, the Giants have changed course. For now, McRae will upgrade his outfield defense while Michael Conforto, Jarrar Encarnacion and others get the designated hitter hits that were headed to Luciano in the second inning. Asked about Luciano’s short leash, manager Bob Melvin noted that Encarnacion swings well and that Mark Canha is also absorbing hits.

“Things can change quickly, and again we try to run our best lineup on the field and get the best integration on a given day,” Melvin said. “It would have been easy at that moment to try to envision more hits for Luciano, but that was over quickly.”

When Soler was traded, president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said the staff wanted to create “opportunities for our young players,” especially Luciano. The promising prospect was front and center, but even on that day, there were signs that more changes might be coming.

Zaidi tried to get a defensive upgrade at center at the deadline, and when asked on the “Giants Talk” podcast about young players who might join Luciano soon, he quickly mentioned Encarnacion and McCray. Instead, McCray replaced Luciano, giving the roster more balance but once again leaving one of the organization’s most promising players wondering about his future.

Luciano has played in just six games since being called up on trade deadline day, going 4-of-21 with a double and nine strikeouts. After missing a week of play, he returned on Monday against Chris Sail, but his most memorable moment from that outing was one he’ll want to forget.

Luciano stopped running on a straight line to third base and was dropped, and while that wasn’t the reason he was sent down, it also didn’t sit well with the staff who saw a young player who still needed a lot of development on his feel for the game before he was ready to contribute at the big league level.

Luciano is now back in his everyday role in the third base, where he will return to playing shortstop and second base. The New York Giants have already decided that shortstop is not in his future at the major league level, and they don’t feel he’s far enough along in his second base career at this point.

Even with Encarnacion and Canha getting certain at-bats, there appeared to be a hole at second base. Casey Schmidt (1-in-27) and Brett Wisely (3-in-21) have struggled at bat since deadline day, but Luciano hasn’t seen any time at second base.

“We didn’t want to do that to him right now, basically,” Melvin said. “He had just started playing second base for a while and we felt like it was more about the bat than anything else that we were looking for some help with, and maybe take some help from him defensively.”

Melvin should have more options with this starting lineup, and on Wednesday, McCray was in center, Heliot Ramos was in left and Conforto was the designated hitter. It’s the best outside line in Giants history under Zaidi, and they’ll be hoping McCray can bring some speed to a lineup that has lost three straight games by one goal and shown an inability to play small ball when needed.

Ramos was a revelation in the outfield, but he wasn’t a good fit in the center field, where McRae will now have a chance. Melvin said Ramos could also see some easier days as a designated hitter, but he’ll mostly be picking veterans.

Despite their struggles, the New York Giants are still close to clinching the third berth in the National League playoffs. But they’re desperate to win, and Luciano got involved just days after he thought he’d finally get a chance to make a big splash.

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