Just a trio of games for the San Francisco Giants Minor League Baseball affiliates on Tuesday, as Low-A San Jose and the ACL Giants both had the day off. Let’s dive into the action.
Link to the 2025 McCovey Chronicles Community Prospect List (CPL)
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All listed positions in the roundup are the positions played in that particular game.
News
Some pretty interesting news! During Wednesday’s game — which will be covered tomorrow, as it’s currently ongoing — AAA Sacramento started Marco Luciano at first base for the first time in his career. This could be an indictment of his development curve in the outfield, but I think it’s more likely that the Giants are intrigued by how well he’s been swinging the bat, and first base is an area of need in the Majors.
AAA Sacramento (25-27)
Sacramento River Cats lost to the El Paso Chihuahuas (Padres) 9-5
Box score
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The biggest news in Sacramento was that first baseman Jerar Encarnación restarted his rehab assignment. Encarnación, who is eligible to come off the 60-Day IL, is expected to join the Giants within the next few days if everything goes well with his rehab. And on Tuesday, everything went well with his rehab.
The powerful right-hander had a dynamic day, hitting 1-2 with a home run, a walk, and a stolen base, before being replaced halfway through the game. He also committed an error at first.
That swing sure will look nice back in San Francisco!
A fantastic day for third baseman/first baseman Devin Mann, who hit a perfect 2-2 with a double, 2 walks, and a hit by pitch. Mann, a 28-year old who was recently signed to a Minor League deal, would seem to have taken David Villar’s place as the emergency corner infield depth, though Luciano’s move to first base might be changing that.
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And excitingly, right fielder Wade Meckler (No. 13 CPL) made his return to Sacramento! Meckler was injured in the 2nd game of the season, and was sidelined for more than a month and a half. He started a rehab assignment in the ACL a little over a week ago, and on Tuesday he was back in Sacramento’s lineup. We didn’t get to see Meckler’s preternatural contact skills, but we did see his control of the zone, as he went 0-2 with 2 strikeouts but also drew 3 walks. The lefty also committed an error in the grass.
A funny start for RHP Carson Seymour (No. 21 CPL). He showed some power by hitting 99, and was comfortably into the 97s even on his final pitches of the night. That’s exciting! But the rest of the performance was quite poor. The righty went 5 innings and allowed 6 hits — including 2 home runs — while also walking 4 batters and striking out just 4. That tagged him for 8 runs, 6 of which were earned.
After an awesome start to the year, Seymour has really started to hit some obstacles, especially when it comes to limiting free passes. Take a look at his splits:
First 4 starts: 18 innings, 10 hits, 5 walks, 2 earned runs, 22 strikeouts
Next 7 starts: 34.2 innings, 35 hits, 22 walks, 23 earned runs, 37 strikeouts
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Certainly something to work on for Seymour, though the raw stuff is still very exciting. He has a 4.27 ERA and a 4.67 FIP on the year.
A nice outing for RHP Sean Hjelle, who tossed 2 scoreless frames with 3 hits and 1 strikeout. It’s a tough path back to the bigs for Hjelle, given that Tristan Beck is pitching well in San Francisco and Justin Verlander is set to return from the IL before long, but the extremely tall righty is staying ready, with a 3.18 ERA, a 2.68 FIP, and 30 strikeouts to 9 walks in 28.1 innings this year.
AA Richmond (13-33)
Richmond Flying Squirrels lost to the Harrisburg Senators (Nationals) 3-2 (11 innings)
Box score
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Ahhh, the Manfred Man. It makes for some silly baseball. This was a scoreless baseball game after 9 innings, but both teams scored a pair of runs in the 10th inning, before the Senators added the winning run in the 11th. And thanks to some poor defense, neither team allowed an earned run in this game!
The star was the starter, LHP Joe Whitman (No. 9 CPL). After a slow start to the year, Whitman has come alive lately. Following last week’s start in which he struck out 11 batters in just 5 innings, the 2023 compensation round pick went 7 brilliant innings in this one, allowing just 4 hits and 1 walk, while striking out 5 and giving up no runs.
Ready to see just how much Whitman has improved so far this year? Check it out:
4 April starts: 14.1 innings, 13 hits, 6 walks, 12 earned runs, 8 strikeouts
5 May starts: 29 innings, 18 hits, 10 walks, 5 earned runs, 31 strikeouts
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4 of those 5 runs came in 1 start, and 4 of the 10 walks came during last week’s 11-strikeout explosion, when it was pouring rain and a loss of control was to be expected.
Either way, Whitman is starting to put together a high class season. Among the 44 pitchers in the Eastern League with at least 30 innings pitched this season, he ranks 21st in ERA (3.53), 10th in FIP (3.35), 12th in strikeouts per 9 innings (10.2), and 27th in walks per 9 innings (3.3). Not bad for a player in just their 2nd full season, who had a rough start to the year.
RHP Evan Gates also had an awesome game, giving up 2 hits (both singles) in 2 scoreless frames, while striking out 3 batters. Gates, an undrafted free agent from 2021, has quietly been having an awesome season, with a 3.32 ERA, a 3.26 FIP, and a spectacular 27 strikeouts to 4 walks in 21.2 innings. This is his 4th straight year seeing time in Richmond, and last year he spent a fair amount of time in Sacramento but with poor results. I’ll be curious to see if he gets back there soon.
Not a lot doing on offense at all. First baseman Bryce Eldridge (No. 1 CPL) had a fine, if uneventful day, hitting 1-4 with a double and an intentional walk, which gives him an .874 OPS and a 154 wRC+. Second baseman Diego Velasquez (No. 16 CPL) hit 0-2 but drew 2 walks and was hit by a pitch. The young switch-hitter is sitting on a .715 OPS and a 115 wRC+.
High-A Eugene (24-22)
Eugene Emeralds beat the Tri-City Dust Devils (Angels) 8-3
Box score
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After a little bump in the road, right fielder James Tibbs III (No. 3 CPL) is certainly off and running again. Last year’s 1st-round pick, known more for his hit tool than his power, once again put the barrel of the bat on the ball, hitting 1-4 with a 2-run home run, a walk, and 2 strikeouts.
With the gorgeous swing, Tibbs now has 8 homers on the year, which is only 1 off the lead in the organization (held by Marco Luciano), and 2 off the lead if you count San Francisco (where Heliot Ramos and Wilmer Flores both have 10).
Tibbs began his debut full season by doing a lot of damage, and then the extra-base knocks entirely avoided him. But now they’re back. It’s been a funny 3-act season for him so far:
First 16 games: 16-57, 2 home runs, 0 triples, 4 doubles, 13 walks, 9 strikeouts
Next 14 games: 5-50, 1 home run, 0 triples, 0 doubles, 12 walks, 10 strikeouts
Last 11 games: 13-40, 5 home runs, 1 triple, 3 doubles, 6 walks, 12 strikeouts
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Look at that power! The 22-year old is now up to an .833 OPS and a 132 wRC+, with a strikeout rate exactly half of what it was during his stint in Eugene last year, and an isolated power mark that’s more than doubled. Talk about making rookie adjustments!
Center fielder Bo Davidson (No. 11 CPL) had another nice game, hitting 2-5 with a triple, 3 runs batted in, and a strikeout, boosting his OPS to .904 and his wRC+ to 145. I wonder if we’ll see Davidson and Tibbs in Richmond sometime this summer?
Shortstop Zane Zielinski, who got the aggressive debut assignment in High-A, hit 2-5 and stole a pair of bases. Zielinski has had basically no power this year, but he’s sporting a .254 average and a .357 on-base percentage, and has 12 stolen bases in 15 attempts in 38 games. Not too shabby for someone who skipped 2 levels!
But the game was won on the mound where RHPs Josh Bostick (No. 27 CPL) and Austin Strickland were absolutely dynamic. Bostick hasn’t had the year he was hoping for, but you wouldn’t know it if you only watched on Tuesday. He mowed down batters for 5 strong innings, giving up just 1 hit (which was admittedly a home run), while walking 2 and hitting a batter, all while striking out 9. He technically gave up 3 runs, but since they all occurred following an error, he has a donut in the earned runs column, which lowered his ERA to 4.50, albeit with a 5.84 FIP. Like I said: not the year he was hoping for, but games like this can turn it around in a hurry.
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As for Strickland, he was beyond dominant. He pitched 3 shutout innings in which he allowed just 3 baserunners — a single and 2 hit batters — and secured 7 of his 9 outs by way of the strikeout. My goodness. It hasn’t been a great year for the 2023 8th-round pick, who came to the Giants in the Joey Bart trade, but he’s certainly starting to figure things out. In his last 3 appearances, he’s given up just 1 hit in 7.2 innings, with 12 strikeouts (though he’s both walked and hit 4 batters during that time).
Home run tracker
AAA Jerar Encarnación (1)
High-A James Tibbs III (8)
Wednesday schedule
Sacramento: vs. El Paso, 12:05 p.m. PT (SP: Mason Black)
Richmond: vs. Harrisburg, 3:35 p.m. PT (SP: Nick Sinacola)
Eugene: at Tri-City, 6:30 p.m. PT (SP: Cesar Perdomo)
San Jose: vs. Inland Empire, 1:00 p.m. PT (SP: Niko Mazza)
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