Bryce Eldridge Celebrates the Future Today

SF Giants Minor Lines, July 2, 2024

It’s the least surprising thing imaginable, but the official announcement of Futures Game participants was released yesterday, and, yes! the Giants’ representative for this year’s showcase event is going to be Bryce Eldridge. An awesome and well-deserved reward for the fantastic season the 2023 top pick is putting together. Eldridge even held his own personal celebration after receiving the honor!

It is, I suppose, also not that surprising that Eldridge is the Giants’ sole representative, which has been true a lot more often than not the last few years. That’s less awesome! In fairness, the rosters are a little smaller now than they used to be in the early years, now that it’s been reduced to a seven-inning game (which is a whole different pet peeve of mine). Still, 10 of the 15 NL teams got two reps (counting inactive players, two orgs, the Nats and Cubs, got three), and it’s a little disappointing to see the Giants still in the “lone rep” tier that they’ve been stuck in basically since the pandemic. More future stars, please!

Still, great news for Bryce, and hopefully this is the year the Giants really have a starring moment at the signature event!

More good news awaits us in MLB’s most recent Top 100, which also rolled out yesterday (big announcement day for MLB Pipeline!). Four different Giants’ prospects are on this list, including big leaguer Hayden Birdsong at #99. If you’re wondering, both Carson Whisenhunt and Marco Luciano have appeared in the Futures Game in the past, which is part of why they’re not going this year.

Hayden Birdsong makes his very first appearance on any Top 100 list, and he went out and showed why he maybe should be a lot higher than this, showing some premium stuff against one of the league’s stellar lineups to pick up his very first major league win last night.

HITTER of the NIGHT: Bryce Eldridge (Eug), 2 for 5, HR (11), 3 R, 3 RBI, 1 BB, 2 K
PITCHER of the NIGHT: Dylan Cumming (Rich), 4.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 6 K

It wasn’t a great night for guys toeing the rubber, as we’ll see in a moment. No, this was a night for hitters, and one in particular stole the show.

That nice piece comes from Matt Lively, sports reporter at KPIX, CBS News Bay Area.