Giants' Wong keeps hits off board

Jake Wong has found multiple ways to be effective this season with Class A Augusta. He allowed nine hits over six innings last time out against Charleston on April 18 but managed a quality start all the same with three runs (two earned) allowed. When he took the mound Tuesday, he gave up fewer knocks. Nine fewer, to be exact.
The Giants' No. 7 prospect completed six no-hit innings, striking out six and allowing two walks, to lead the GreenJackets to a 5-1 win over Lexington at SRP Park. The six frames matched his career high. He was lifted after 75 pitches, 46 of which were strikes -- in part the victim of early-season pitch and innings limits.

"It was just a lot of mixing up pitches today," said Wong (2-1). "It was a lot of changeups and curveballs to play off the fastball. The first thing is always going to be fastball location for me, but we had them going early with the off-speed. ... We noticed they had aggressive guys in the lineup, so if we could get them off-balance with off-speed, we were going to be effective."
Gameday box score
The 22-year-old right-hander retired the first six Legends he faced, at which point he felt his three-pitch mix was capable of putting together a stellar start. His first baserunner allowed came on a walk to Jackson Lueck to open the third. The Lexington left fielder reached as far as third on a stolen base and a wild pitch, but Wong ended the threat by getting Freddy Fermin to pop out and striking out Matt Morales (swinging) and Jeison Guzman (looking).
Meanwhile, Wong's Lexington counterpart was also posting zeros. No. 29 Royals prospect Jonathan Bowlan (1-1) was perfect through his first four innings and took his own no-hitter into the sixth before giving up four consecutive hits -- three of which were doubles. He was ultimately charged with four earned runs on those four hits, but the early battle kept Wong on his toes.
"Hats off to that guy," said the GreenJackets hurler. "He was throwing well too, and I just had to look at it as a challenge, inning to inning, batter to batter. Having the opposing pitcher do as well as he was doing is always motivating, and I was just trying to keep it going with him as best I could."
Wong issued his only other free pass to Juan Carlos Negret with one out in the fifth but got Lueck to bounce into a 3-6-3 double play. He got three more groundouts in the sixth to close out the gem.
His six strikeouts marked a new career high, beating out his five from his previous start last Wednesday, and of his 75 pitches, 11 resulted in swings and misses. That 14.7% rate was an improvement over his 10.0% mark entering the day, which placed him 69th of the 78 South Atlantic League pitchers with at least 15 innings pitched. His success Tuesday was due to the improvement of his above-average curveball -- a pitch that was a focus in his bullpen sessions between starts.
"I feel like I'm snapping if off a little bit better today," he said. "The last start, it was a little flat, so I worked on getting it more depth and bite, and it played pretty well today because of that. It was definitely more effective, and along with my changeup, it helped keep these guys off-balance." 
Wong now owns a 2.78 ERA and 1.01 WHIP with 22 strikeouts and six walks through his first five starts (22 2/3 innings) with the GreenJackets. Taken in the third round of last year's Draft out of Grand Canyon University, the Arizona native has one of the most promising arms in the Giants system because of a plus fastball that sits in the low-to-mid-90s with good movement, above-average curve and average changeup. It's an arsenal that San Francisco hopes can keep the 6-foot-2 hurler in a starting role over the long term. But first, he needs to adjust to the pro game.

"It's a little bit different, yeah." he said of his first full season. "We're getting into the long haul of the season, and it's getting to the point where it's all about taking care of your body with nutrition, conditioning, all that stuff. One-hundred-and-forty is a lot of games, so it's about going through you need to to get through all of that, whether it's preparation or recovery. I'm staying on top of the things I can control and going from there."
No. 19 Giants prospect Jacob Gonzalez led the Augusta offense, going 2-for-3 with a triple, a double, two RBIs and a walk. Shortstop Shane Matheny doubled and also drove in a pair of runs.