Giants' Hinojosa ends slump with bases-clearing double

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- C.J. Hinojosa could not have picked a better time to break out of his recent Arizona Fall League slump.
Hinojosa, the Giants' No. 28 prospect, came off the bench in the bottom of the seventh inning and delivered a pinch-hit, bases-clearing double that helped ignite a five-run Scottsdale rally en route to 6-5 victory over Salt River on Thursday at Scottsdale Stadium.
• Gameday
"It was a big moment for me," Hinojosa said after the game. "It made me happy to finally get my feet wet after not getting a hit in a couple games, because that sinks into the back of your head."
Hinojosa had been 0-for-17 at the plate over his last five games before his key double on Thursday night. It also marked his first hit since the Fall League's Opening Day on Oct. 9, when he turned in a 2-for-5 performance.
"I've been hitting a couple balls hard in some at-bats; some at-bats have been bad," he said. "I've just kept having fun, coming out and working, and it finally paid off."
The Scorpions drew back-to-back walks to open the seventh inning and then loaded the bases with one out when Arquimedes Gamboa reached on an infield single to third base. Scottsdale leadoff man Shed Long Jr. was then called back to the dugout in favor of Hinojosa, who turned on the first pitch he saw from Nationals reliever Jordan Mills, lacing it down the third-base line and into the left-field corner to plate all three baserunners.
"I was just hunting for something up and I got it," the 24-year-old infielder said.
"I saw how [Mills] was throwing, saw he was a sidearm guy, so I treated him like a sidearm righty and just wanted to get the ball up," he added. "I didn't know if he was going to throw me a fastball -- I saw on the report that he doesn't throw many sliders -- so it was either going to be a fastball or a changeup."
Hinojosa's double was the first of three hit by the Scorpions in the five-run frame, as Abraham Toro followed with a two-bagger to the opposite field to even the score, while Peter Alonso's ground rule double to right field with two outs put Scottsdale ahead for good.
The Giants sent Hinojosa, the club's 11th-round pick from the 2015 Draft, to the Fall League this year so that he could make up for the at-bats he lost due to both injury and a suspension during the regular season.
Although the University of Texas product was already expected to be sidelined early in the season as he recovered from the Achilles injury that prematurely ended his 2017 campaign, a 50-game suspension he received in April as the result a second positive test for a drug of abuse ultimately delayed his season debut until May 31.
According to Hinojosa, those experiences, along with his subsequent performance in his third tour of the Eastern League with Double-A Richmond, have helped prepare him for the Arizona Fall League.
"I did miss a little bit of time due to injury and a mistake that I made," he said, "but I put it behind me and used it as a learning lesson and went out there and worked my butt off back in Double-A again. It helped, and it's paying off."