Rookie Susac scorching start

Daniel Susac needed only seven at-bats to turn heads. The San Francisco Giants rookie catcher ripped a two-run triple on April 7 and pushed his opening Major League line to 6-for-7 through his first three games. That triple came in the eighth inning of a 6-0 Giants win over the Philadelphia Phillies at Oracle Park. Major League Baseball’s game video logged the ball at 75.1 miles per hour off the bat, with a 31-degree launch angle, and scored it as Susac’s first career runs batted in. The speed of the start is what makes it jump off the page. ESPN’s game log showed Susac at 4 games, 7 at-bats, 6 hits, 1 triple, 2 runs batted in, and 1 walk as of April 8, 2026. Susac is a catcher, which means his job is split between hitting and running the game for the pitcher. A hot streak from a catcher can change a manager’s lineup card faster than a hot streak from a bench bat, because the team is deciding on both offense and defense at once. His first big night came on April 2 in San Francisco, when he made his first Major League start and went 3-for-3 with a walk. Major League Baseball’s recap said that start came behind the plate, which matters because a rookie catcher is being trusted with pitch calling, receiving, and game management while also producing at the plate. Susac did not arrive as a random emergency call-up. Major League Baseball reported in March that the Giants acquired him through the Rule 5 Draft process after the Minnesota Twins selected him and then sent him to San Francisco in a trade involving catching prospect Miguel Caraballo and cash. The Rule 5 Draft is baseball’s shortcut for exposing blocked prospects. If a player is left off his original club’s protected roster long enough, another team can take him, but that new team has to keep him in the Major Leagues or risk losing him back. That rule is why every early at-bat matters more for Susac than it does for a typical rookie. If he looks playable right now, the Giants have a much easier case for carrying him and finding him regular innings behind starting catcher Patrick Bailey. There was a reason teams kept betting on his bat before this week. Major League Baseball noted that Susac was the nineteenth overall pick in the 2022 draft out of the University of Arizona, and its Rule 5 feature said he hit.275 with an.832 on-base plus slugging percentage and 18 home runs in 97 Triple-A games in 2025. He also has baseball bloodlines that make the name familiar in Northern California. His Major League player page lists him as the younger brother of former big league catcher Andrew Susac, who also spent part of his career with the Giants. No one should confuse 6-for-7 with a finished scouting report. Seven at-bats is a coffee-cup sample, and pitchers will adjust once there is more video, more sequencing, and more reason to test his weak spots. But tiny samples still change real decisions in April. A rookie catcher who opens his career with six hits in seven at-bats forces the staff to think about extra starts, later-game pinch-hit chances, and whether a spring roster battle just turned into a regular-season opportunity.