We did it, folks. We survived the long and cold baseball offseason, and now not only has San Francisco Giants baseball returned, but also San Francisco Giants Minor League Baseball.
Only one of the organization’s affiliates has started play, but that team — the AAA Sacramento River Cats — played a trio of games over the “weekend,” a term I’m using to include Friday for content planning purposes.
In the coming days, these articles will expand to way-too-many thousands of words, as more affiliates get
called into action. For now, though, it’s relatively concise. Let’s dive into the action!
Link to the 2026 McCovey Chronicles Community Prospect List (CPL)
All listed positions in the roundup are the position played in that particular game.
News
The start of the season always brings about a fair amount of news. Perhaps most notable is that RHP Will Bednar (No. 24 CPL) is beginning the year on the Development List. It’s not entirely clear what the reason for that is, or when he’ll be back to pitching in games and working his way towards an MLB debut, which seems likely to come this year.
On the depth front, infielder Osleivis Basabe and LHP Nick Margevicius — two players who were in camp as NRIs — are opening the year on the Injured List.
The Giants also announced a bunch of released Minor Leaguers over the weekend: RHPs Brent Honeywell, Ian Villers, Cale Lansville, Nick Sinacola, and Tyler Myrick; middle infielders Cole Foster and Quinn McDaniel; outfielders Donovan McIntyre and Miguel Blanco; and catchers Jesus Alexander, Juan Perez, and Jorge Ramirez (if I were Jesús Rodríguez I’d be a little worried right now … it’s a bad time to be a catcher with a “J” name!). Honeywell is the household name of that group, as a former 2nd-round pick with a fair amount of MLB experience. The Giants signed him late in camp to a Minor League deal, though without a camp invite, and it didn’t take long for one or both sides to decide to move in a new direction.
Foster is the most high-profile prospect name of the group, as he was a 3rd-round pick by the Giants in 2023. His bat never materialized, though, and last year, as a 23-year old, he sported just a .150/.264/.260 line in High-A, with a 32.3% strikeout rate, while also not playing too much defense.
Alexander is also a familiar name to Giants prospect hounds. The 20-year old lefty had a spectacular 2024 in the Dominican Summer League, posting a 1.033 OPS and a 171 wRC+, with 25 extra-base hits in 47 games, and a very low strikeout rate. But his stateside debut didn’t go particularly well, as he had just a .630 OPS and a 75 wRC+ in the Arizona Complex League last year. Those just aren’t good enough numbers for a player who looks more like a first baseman than a catcher, so that explains the move.
The releases of Myrick and Villers were slightly surprising to me, as teams hoard upper-minors bullpen depth, but the Giants apparently have plenty of it. Myrick was a 14th-round pick in 2011, and posted a 4.88 ERA and a 5.53 FIP last year between AA Richmond and AAA Sacramento, but is about to turn 28; Villers was an 8th-round pick in 2021 who dominated High-A a season ago, but struggled in AA.
Best of luck to all these prospects as they try to materialize their baseball dreams elsewhere … or move on to the next chapter of their lives.
Now let’s get to the games!
AAA Sacramento (2-1)
Friday: Sacramento River Cats lost to the El Paso Chihuahuas 9-3 [box score]
Saturday: Sacramento River Cats beat the El Paso Chihuahuas 5-4 (10 innings) [box score]
Sunday: Sacramento River Cats beat the El Paso Chihuahuas 5-4 (11 innings) [box score]
As far as individual performances go, it wasn’t the most thrilling start to the season for the River Cats. But as far as games go? Well, they won their opening series, with 2 of the 3 games being decided in extra innings, on walk-offs. That’s pretty danged exciting!
While walk-offs are always exciting, this pair was the furthest thing imaginable from a walk-off home run, or the other dramatic extra-innings endings that you envision when you hear the phrase. Saturday’s occurred when catcher Logan Porter hit a ground ball with the bases loaded, and the Chihuahuas were unable to get the out at home. And Sunday’s happened when catcher Jesús Rodríguez (No. 16 CPL) hit a sacrifice fly that is probably more properly described as a sacrifice pop up, it was so shallow in center field … but shortstop Tyler Fitzgerald used his best weapon — his legs — and an artful slide to score anyway.
Walk-offs notwithstanding, the highlight of the weekend for Sacramento was that the pitcher in play to make the Major League roster shined out of the bullpen, to a man. RHP Spencer Bivens, after spending the entire 2025 season on the MLB roster, was surprisingly optioned last week, but took it in stride: he pitched in the Sacramento opener on Friday, and tossed a no-hit inning with 1 walk and 2 strikeouts. RHP Tristan Beck, who started to come to life late in camp but was optioned, pitched on Saturday and was nothing short of dominant: he retired all 6 batters he faced, struck out 3 of them, needed just 19 pitches to get through 2 perfect innings, and threw 15 of those pitches for strikes.
Following Beck on Saturday was veteran RHP Michael Fulmer, an NRI who was reassigned. Fulmer hilariously was almost a carbon copy of Beck, from a results standpoint: he had the same number of innings (2), batters faced (6), hits allowed (0), walks (0), strikeouts (3), and pitches thrown (19), though he was even better on the strike standpoint, with a glorious 16-to-3 strike-to-ball ratio. However, Fulmer pitched the 9th and 10th innings, and while he didn’t allow a baserunner, he still got tagged for an unearned run due to the Manfred Man scoring.
On Sunday, it was a pair of NRIs: LHP Juan Sánchez (No. 41 CPL) and RHP Gregory Santos. Sánchez, who has been in the organization longer than anyone other than Logan Webb (but is only 25), pitched a no-hit inning with 2 strikeouts, though he did walk a batter and hit another. He’s still finding his control post-Tommy John — just 9 of his 21 pitches were strikes — and when he does, he’ll almost surely be ready for a Major League debut. As for Santos, he’s also working off some injury rust, which is the only reason he didn’t make the Opening Day roster. Sunday was a nice step forward, as he threw 16 of 24 pitches for strikes, while taking down 2 scoreless innings, with a walk constituting his lone baserunner allowed. I would be surprised if he spends too long in Sacramento before heading back to the Majors.
As for the exciting young quartet of rostered starting pitchers in Sacramento’s rotation, they all pitched, and the results were mixed, albeit mostly good. It didn’t start particularly well, though, as LHP Carson Whisenhunt (No. 8 CPL) drew the opening assignment and ran into some issues. As we saw with Whisenhunt in Spring Training, and a bit in his MLB debut last year, things were going great … until they weren’t. After allowing a single and a walk to start the season, Whiz quickly recovered with a double play and a strikeout. He set down the side in order in the 2nd inning, with a pair of strikeouts. After allowing a leadoff walk in the 3rd, he easily retired the next 3 batters. And it was 3-up, 3-down with a K in the 4th.
But things didn’t go well in the fifth, as Whisenhunt would fail to record an out, giving up a walk and 3 consecutive singles before getting pulled from the game.
In fairness to Whiz, he had some fairly poor luck. The 1st of that trio of hits was a 58.5 mph infield single. The 2nd was a bunt. The 3rd was a line drive at a high school-esque 67.4 mph. And then, to make matters worse, Whisenhunt left the bases loaded to LHP John Michael Bertrand, who allowed all 3 inherited runners to score.
As a result, Whisenhunt’s debut line doesn’t look good: 4 innings, 4 hits, 3 walks, 4 strikeouts, and 4 earned runs. But it was certainly a better showing that the results would suggest, though the Giants do need him to find the strike zone more: he threw just 44 of 71 pitches for strikes.
The other starters did well. RHP Carson Seymour took the bump on Saturday, though the Giants only had him pitch a pair of innings. He gave up just 1 baserunner in those 2 innings (a single), while striking out 3 batters, and throwing 19 of 31 pitches for strikes. I would assume the Giants stretch out Seymour as the year goes on, but his path to the Majors most likely goes through the bullpen.
And on Sunday, it was a pair of starters who piggybacked, likely to ensure that all 4 of the notable starting arms got to play in the opening 3-game series, which is followed by a Monday off-day. Kicking things off was RHP Blade Tidwell (No. 9 CPL), who was brilliant in 2.2 shutout innings, allowing no hits and 1 walk, while striking out 3. He gave way to RHP Trevor McDonald (No. 12 CPL), who took down 2.1 innings with 1 hit, 1 hit batter, and 4 strikeouts, though he allowed a run to score. Tidwell and McDonald both impressed in camp, though the latter really struggled at the end. Both seem in the running for both bullpen roles and rotation fill-in jobs.
The hitting was fairly uninspired, with the River Cats mustering just 5 extra-base hits — and no home runs — in the 3-game miniseries (most AAA series are 6 games). Third baseman Buddy Kennedy had a pair of those, as he hit 2-8 with 2 doubles, a walk, and a strikeout.
All eyes are on first baseman/designated hitter Bryce Eldridge (No. 1 CPL), who only put the ball in play in half of his plate appearances. The power lefty started all 3 games and hit 3-10, while drawing 4 walks, getting hit by a pitch, and striking out 5 times.
Left fielder/center fielder Grant McCray was an on-base machine in Spring Training, and he carried that into the start of the AAA Season, hitting 3-9 with 4 walks, a hit by pitch, and just 1 strikeout. That last number is quite nice, as the lefty had a 27.1% strikeout rate in AAA last year, and has an untenable 42.9% K rate in his MLB time. However, McCray did not get an Opening Day assignment with San Francisco, and if he looks at the person who beat him out for that role — NRI Jared Oliva — he’ll probably get an important takeaway: put that speed on display, and steal more bases. Unfortunately, we did not see that in play this weekend, as McCray did not attempt any thefts, despite constantly being on base.
Someone who did steal a base was second baseman Nate Furman (No. 39 CPL), who got the AAA assignment despite having limited time in AA. Furman had a nice debut weekend at the level, hitting 2-5 with 3 walks, 1 strikeout, and the team’s only stolen base of the weekend.
Also having a nice weekend was Drew Gilbert, who played all 3 outfield positions, as he battles McCray (and Will Brennan) for the next-man-up 4th outfielder role. He made a strong case in this series, hitting 4-12 with a double, a walk, a hit by pitch, 2 sacrifice flies, and a strikeout.
Unfortunately, it was a very tough weekend for Fitzgerald, save for that gutsy dash home to end the series. The right-handed hitter, who is in his final option year, spent the entire weekend at shortstop, but hit just 0-12 with 1 walk, 1 hit by pitch, and 4 strikeouts. He’s really been in quite a rut dating back to the midway point of the 2024 season; here’s hoping he can break out of it, because he has a lot to offer with his legs and glove.
And that’s the first weekend of the Minor League season, folks! Much more to come!
Upcoming schedule
Sacramento has today off, but resumes play on Tuesday when they hit the road for a 6-game series against the Salt Lake Bees of the Los Angeles Angels organization. AA Richmond begins their season on Friday, with a 3-game road series against the Erie SeaWolves, the Detroit Tigers AA affiliate. High-A Eugene also kicks things off on Friday (next Monday’s roundup is gonna be exciting!), as they host the Hillsboro Hops of the Arizona Diamondbacks organization for a 3-game set. And if you don’t want to wait until Friday, don’t worry: Low-A San Jose begins on Thursday, when they visit the Stockton Ports of the A’s organization for a 3-game series of their own.
