Rookie Susac starts hot
Rookie catcher Daniel Susac opened his major‑league career with a perfect 6‑for‑7 start at the plate and crushed a two‑run triple that turned heads early in the season. That kind of immediate production changes how teams view a young bat — suddenly Susac is a player opposing staffs have to account for in scouting and lineups. Early small samples are volatile, but a 6‑for‑7 run is the sort of hot streak that gets clubhouse and beat‑writer attention. (x.com).
Daniel Susac needed only 7 major-league at-bats to force his way into the Giants conversation. By April 8, the 24-year-old catcher had gone 6-for-7 with a walk, including a two-run triple against the Philadelphia Phillies on April 7. (mlb.com, mlb.com) The streak started in his first major-league start on April 2 against the New York Mets, when Susac went 3-for-3 with a walk at Oracle Park. Five days later, he opened the Phillies game with two more hits before finally making his first out, then added that triple in the eighth inning. (mlb.com, nbcbayarea.com, mlb.com) That put him in very old company very fast. The Athletic reported that Susac became the first Giant since Willie McCovey in 1959 to begin a career with four hits in four at-bats, and NBC Sports Bay Area noted that he was the first Giant in more than 50 years to open with a 5-for-5 run. (nytimes.com, nbcbayarea.com) Susac was not supposed to arrive as a franchise savior this month. He was a 2022 first-round pick by the Oakland Athletics, then reached San Francisco only after the Minnesota Twins selected him in the Rule 5 Draft and dealt him to the Giants in December 2025. (mlb.com, nbcsportsbayarea.com, mlb.com) He also arrived at a position the Giants thought was already filled. Patrick Bailey, a first-round pick who debuted in 2023, opened 2026 as the club’s main catcher, but through his first 27 at-bats he was hitting.111 with a.311 on-base plus slugging percentage. (mlb.com, espn.com) That is why 6-for-7 lands harder than a normal hot week. Catcher is the one lineup spot where teams often accept light hitting in exchange for defense and game-calling, so a rookie who gives you competent catching and immediate offense can scramble the pecking order in a hurry. (sports.yahoo.com, mlb.com) The small-sample warning still applies here. Seven at-bats can make almost anybody look like an All-Star or a backup, and Susac’s minor-league line before this call-up was solid rather than cartoonish: a.280 average with 39 home runs across 1,223 at-bats. (milb.com) But pitchers and scouts do not wait for a month of data before reacting. Once a rookie strings together two three-hit games and drives a ball into the right-field corner for two runs, the next advance report starts carrying his name in heavier ink. (mlb.com, sports.yahoo.com) Susac’s first week does not prove he is the Giants’ next middle-of-the-order bat. It does prove that a player who entered April as catching depth is now part of the reason opponents have to think harder about San Francisco’s lineup card. (mlb.com, sports.yahoo.com)
