Daniel Susac’s wild MLB start
Catcher Daniel Susac is off to an eye‑catching start — he went 6‑for‑7 in a recent game and delivered a two‑run triple in his career‑best showing, a performance that went viral across social baseball feeds. For fantasy or scouting eyes, that’s a concrete early signal that Susac’s bat is getting hot right now. (x.com)
Daniel Susac needed only 7 major league at-bats to pile up 6 hits, and by April 8 he had already logged a 3-for-3 debut start against the New York Mets and a 3-for-4 night with a two-run triple against the Philadelphia Phillies. Major League Baseball’s own highlight account pushed the triple across social media because almost nobody opens a career hitting.857 with a 2.018 on-base plus slugging percentage. (mlb.com) (espn.com) (mlb.com) That burst was unusual even by Giants standards. The Athletic reported that Susac became the first Giant since Willie McCovey in 1959 to start a career with four hits in his first four at-bats, and he stretched that run to five straight hits before finally making an out. (nytimes.com) (msn.com) Susac is not a random emergency call-up. Major League Baseball lists him as a 24-year-old right-handed catcher from Roseville, California, drafted 19th overall by the Oakland Athletics in 2022 after starring at the University of Arizona. (mlb.com) (arizonawildcats.com) At Arizona, his bat was loud long before this week. USA Baseball and Arizona both noted that in 2022 he hit about.363, led the Pac-12 Conference with 87 hits, and reached the Golden Spikes Award semifinal round, which is college baseball’s version of an all-country short list. (usabaseball.com) (arizonawildcats.com) The road to San Francisco was also not straight. Susac spent 2025 at Triple-A Las Vegas, where reports on the Rule 5 Draft said he hit.275 with 18 home runs in 97 games, then the Minnesota Twins selected him in the Rule 5 process and immediately traded him to the Giants in December 2025. (twinsdaily.com) (nbcsportsbayarea.com) That background explains why scouts cared even before the hot start. Minor League Baseball’s career line for Susac before his call-up showed 1,223 at-bats, 343 hits, 39 home runs, and a.280 batting average, which is the profile of a catcher with real offensive track record rather than one lucky week. (milb.com) (baseball-reference.com) The immediate roster question is playing time. Rotowire and CBS both noted that Susac’s big April 8 game came with Patrick Bailey getting the night off, but the early production was strong enough that outside coverage immediately started asking whether the Giants had found a way to earn him more at-bats behind the plate and as a bat in the lineup. (rotowire.com) (cbssports.com) (sports.yahoo.com) The triple that blew up online was not a cheap stat-line detail. Major League Baseball’s play data logged it at 240 feet to right field off a 96.8 mile-per-hour four-seam fastball from Orion Kerkering, driving in two runs with two outs in the eighth inning of a 6-0 Giants win. (mlb.com) Seven at-bats do not prove a season, and nobody keeps hitting.857 in the majors. But when a former first-round catcher arrives with a long minor league résumé, opens with six hits in seven trips, and starts matching names like Willie McCovey in the record book, that is why one random April box score suddenly becomes everybody’s baseball clip of the night. (mlb.com) (nytimes.com)
