SF Giants top outfielder prospect Luis Matos has epic series at Triple-A

The SF Giants challenged 21-year-old outfielder Luis Matos (Giants #4 prospect) when they promoted him to the Triple-A Sacramento River Cats on May 17. It's safe to say he's adjusting well to the new level. In 17 games since arriving at the highest level of the minor leagues, Matos has hit .397/.434/.551 with four stolen bases. A huge part of that exceptional triple-slash came in the past week in an epic series in Tacoma against the Seattle Mariners Triple-A affiliate.

The River Cats completed a six-game series against the Tacoma Rainiers on Sunday, with Matos finishing with only one hit in four trips to the plate. That capped a series where Matos delivered a stunning 16 hits, raising his Triple-A batting average by 84 points.

Matos started off with a 3-for-5 effort Tuesday and followed it up with another 3-5 performance Wednesday when he also walked and stole two bases. Thursday he really broke out, going 4-for-6 with a double and his first Triple-A home run.

He cooled off relatively on Friday night, going 2-5 with a double, though he scored two runs and drove in two. Saturday was another three-hit game, with Matos going 3-5 with an RBI before closing out the road series 1-4.

Final stats: 16-30, 21 total bases, eight RBI, five runs scored. Matos slugged .700 with a .548 on-base percentage for the series, continuing to validate the Giants' decision to aggressively promote him after just 31 games at Double-A Richmond.

Matos was a breakout prospect in 2021 but saw his stock dip last season. However, a quadriceps injury seemed to sap some of his athleticism. He rebounded this offseason in the Arizona Fall League, winning Defensive Player of the Year in the most prestigious offseason league for prospects.

He's also back to hitting the ball harder after a season of hitting a lot of harmless infield pop-ups and shallow fly balls. The Giants would still like to see more power from the 21-year-old Matos, but that should come as he gets older. He's displaying great ball-to-bat skills this year even going up a level.

While the Giants have been moving up many of their prospects all year, the team's backlog of outfielders in the majors makes it hard to envision Matos receiving a promotion barring an injury. With that said, it's not a stretch to think that at some point president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi will have no choice but to give Luis Matos an opportunity to be an everyday player with the SF Giants.