James Tibbs III, Marco Luciano: So Nice, They Dingered Twice

SF Giants Minor Lines, May 23-25, 2025

Photo Credit: Sacramento River Cats

Let’s start the new week with a hearty There R Giants’ congratulations to the one and only Dennis Pelfrey! When Richmond took the regularly scheduled Friday night game (in a thankfully mundane manner), Pelf set the mark for most career victories as manager in Richmond Flying Squirrels’ franchise history with #217, besting Dave Machemer’s previous record. Pelfrey is also the only manager in Squirrels’ history to guide the club to the playoffs multiple times, taking them to the Eastern League post-season in back-to-back years in 2022-23. It’s been more of a grind getting to the historic mark this year than anybody had hoped, but nobody deserves to make their mark in the record book more than Pelf, who guides his troops with a steady, demanding, and thoughtful hand — even if the results haven’t been there so far this year.

(Speaking of which, this bit of history, which I know Pelf himself doesn’t care about, probably came as cold comfort given the events of the week in Binghamton, but we’ll get to that in due time.)

I hope you all had a great Memorial Day Weekend, as did we. I got to see so many of my guys I used to cover in their prospect days all grown up and big timing it! Got to see Landen Roupp and Kyle Harrison starting (from much, MUCH further away than my seats back in their old Richmond or San Jose days, but with a lot more buzz in the air as well), as well as big time There R Giants’ fave Randy Rodriguez, who showed off that same electric talent that caught my eye in San Jose way back in 2021.

It’s great fun, but it’s also really important for prospect evaluation, to come and recalibrate the eyes with some big league activity now and again, to remember how good, how fast, and how hard, the play is at this level. Knowing how high the hill is that these kids have chosen to climb is always important, both for evaluation and empathy purposes.

HITTER of the WEEKEND: James Tibbs III (Eug), 3 for 10, 2 HR, 3b, 5 RBI, 3 R, 2 BB
PITCHER of the WEEKEND: Luis de la Torre (ACLG), 4.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 7 K

With Memorial Day behind us, we’re now past the first traditional tentpole of the baseball season, and a full 1/3 of the way through the minor league season. At this point, numbers no longer get the small sample size/bad weather/slow start caveats. Though there’s a long ways still to go, of course, but seasons are starting to take on their own shape and personality.

Let’s take a whirl through the holiday weekend and see what there is to be seen.