In Which I Get My First Josuar Experience!

SF Giants Minor Lines, July 10, 2025

Ah, travel plans. I had such a nice Wednesday planned — with plenty of relaxing, introductory beach time built in to ease my transition to the Dominican. Sadly, the hot mess that is Newark International Airport threw a wrench into those plans, and instead, I dragged myself into my resort a little after 3:00 am (in the light of the day, it turned out to be lovely). Traveling is a great lesson in maintaining flexibility and equanimity. Good lessons!

And short sleep didn’t do anything to douse my enthusiasm for my first experience of the Felipe Alou Baseball Academy and the very real joys of DSL baseball! I should say right up top that I could never have gotten this Bucket List item checked off without tremendous support and generosity from the Giants. The Dominican Academies very understandably and necessarily have extremely tight security, so this is a trip that can only be done through the support of the team (in other words, don’t start looking at air prices!). Special thanks go out to Gabe Alvarez, whose help planning my trip logistics was invaluable, and to the entire Giants’ organization for bringing me into this unique and beautiful corner of professional baseball.

A unique corner that the Giants have a long and honored history in, I should add!

(Those trophies, by the way, are all for Giants’ DSL team accomplishments. All of the “smaller” ones are divisional champions, and the three big ones on the top shelf are for DSL Championship teams in 2009, 2010, and 2015.)

HITTER of the DAY: Josuar Gonzalez (DSLGB), 1 for 2, 2 BB, 2 R, 1 SB
PITCHER of the NIGHT: Luis de la Torre (SJ), 4.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 7 K

I’ll do the full minor lines today, of course, but a lot of my time here today will be observations from where my feet were: enjoying my very first look at the young Josuar Gonzalez, which is why he takes his place as our featured hitter of the day, for doing a lot of things very impressively. Even his lone out was impressive!

And remember, I’m running a “Yay for the DSL” sale for the length of my stay in this beautiful country: 25% off your first year as a There R Giants’ subscriber, whether you choose to with an annual subscription or a monthly one (my first ever monthly subs sale). So why not join up, and then come on in to see what the hubbub’s about!