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Kyle Freeland on Rafael Devers home run trot that started brawl: “Extremely disrespectful”

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Kyle Freeland barked, but the Rockies didn’t have enough bite.

Falling behind 2-0 and losing their starter to a self-inflicted ejection eight pitches into the game, the Rockies never fully recovered Tuesday in a 7-4 loss to San Francisco — their 100th of the year. That makes Colorado the first franchise since the 2011-13 Houston Astros to lose 100 games in three consecutive seasons.

“Was tonight 100?” manager Warren Schaeffer said.

With dozens of dogs among an announced Coors Field attendance of 18,934, the Giants scored all seven runs via the long ball, none more dramatic than the first. After Freeland served up a towering two-run shot to Rafael Devers two batters into the game, the Rockies lefty interrupted Devers’ slow home run trot, aggressively urging him to hurry it up.

“Extremely disrespectful to show me up like that in the first inning after hitting a home run. Standing there, watching it, taking your sweet time getting down to first base,” Freeland said afterward, emphasizing that he would understand if the celebration occurred after a clutch home run in the late innings. “I’ve been in this league quite some time, and I know he has as well. I just find that extremely disrespectful, and I felt that I needed to let him know about that.”

Devers hadn’t even reached first base yet. His freshly flipped bat barely had any time to cool down on the grass before tempers heated up around it. The former Red Sox slugger shouted back at Freeland and veered away from the base path. Dugouts and bullpens emptied.

What followed probably wouldn’t qualify as a brawl according to the old-school definition of the word — but it did include a series of shoves, instigated by Giants first baseman Matt Chapman on Freeland. Then it was a mess of hands indistinguishable from one another. In the end, Freeland, Chapman and Giants shortstop Willy Adames (responsible for a second mini-skirmish) were thrown out.

“I was slightly surprised to be ejected,” Freeland said. “I understand that I was the one who instigated it, so that right there is grounds for ejection. I understand that. Slightly surprised, but also not, because I understand the rules.”

Devers was sent back to first base to belatedly finish his home run trot while Antonio Senzatela warmed up to replace Freeland, even though Freeland said afterward that Devers also shoved him.

“I don’t know why Chapman and Adames got ejected. I’m assuming it was because they came up and shoved me,” Freeland said. “Devers also shoved me. That’s the spot that I don’t understand why he wasn’t ejected.”

Schaeffer commended the umpires for how they handled the conflict, saying he expected Freeland to be ejected after the benches cleared. When asked if he thought Devers’ celebration was excessive, the Rockies manager said he didn’t see that part.

“Happens a lot in today’s game, but those things are subjective,” Schaeffer said. “A guy like (Freeland) has been pitching a long time. I think he felt disrespected, and he did what he did. At the end of the day, when your starter doesn’t get an out in the first inning and he’s out of the game, that hurts the ballclub. That hurts the ballclub. And he knows that.”

The Rockies stayed within arm’s reach all night but couldn’t overcome the initial blow from Devers. Senzatela almost made it through five scoreless innings, only for his gutsy long-relief appearance was thwarted with two outs and two strikes in the fifth by Casey Schmitt, who entered the game to replace the ejected Adames. He homered at the end of a long at-bat, giving San Francisco a 3-1 lead and causing Schaeffer to go back to his bullpen.

“I hurt the bullpen extremely bad tonight, doing that, getting ejected in the first inning, eight pitches in,” Freeland said. “But Senzy did a phenomenal job, eating innings for the bullpen to save them as much as possible. I have to tip my cap to him for doing that.”

Devers went hitless the rest of the night after the brawl forced him to fill Chapman’s spot at third base — the position where Devers was ironically the source of much drama in Boston earlier this year, resulting in him being traded to San Francisco. But even with Devers playing a somewhat anonymous last eight innings, Patrick Bailey and Wilmer Flores added insurance homers, enough to nullify a two-run bomb from Rockies catcher Hunter Goodman.

Umpire Dan Bellino told a pool reporter that the crew discussed whether or not Devers should’ve been denied his home run for abandoning the bases to confront Freeland. “It’s an interesting rule,” Bellino said. “It’s one of those you don’t see hardly ever. We discussed it but ultimately, because it was a dead-ball situation, we did not deem it to be abandoning or anything like that.” Bellino said he believes that Devers would’ve still been awarded the home run even if he had been ejected.

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Bennett Durando

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September 2, 2025

Leaders rally in San Francisco for proposition to redraw congressional district maps

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Elected officials and community members rallied on the steps of San Francisco City Hall on Tuesday in support of a resolution to endorse California’s Proposition 50, which would temporarily redraw the state’s congressional district maps.

If passed, the Board of Supervisors resolution would make San Francisco one of the first cities to endorse Proposition 50, which comes in response to Texas’ recent mid-decade congressional redistricting in favor of Republicans.

The ballot measure would create new district maps for California’s congressional elections through 2030. Under Proposition 50, the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, the state’s independent commission tasked with drawing nonpartisan districts every 10 years, would resume creating congressional district maps for the state in 2031.

Elected officials including California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, and San Francisco Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who introduced the resolution, framed Proposition 50 as an appropriate and important response to attacks on democracy by President Donald Trump’s administration.

“We are the American people. We are rebels. We fight back,” Kounalakis said. “We are going to pass Proposition 50 in order to reach fairness in Washington, for the country, as the right wing seeks to take that away from us.”

Wiener framed Proposition 50 as a “fight that came to us.”

“Donald Trump went to Texas and said, ‘I want you to get me five more seats, I want you to rig this election,’ because Trump knows his policies are unpopular and can’t win a free and fair election,” Wiener said. “California said no.”

Chiu said that the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office had won seven lawsuits against the Trump Administration since the start of Trump’s second term. Still, Chiu argued that “we cannot fight this administration just in the courts.”

“Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans have ripped up this playbook,” he said. “We can’t play by rules that no longer exist.”

California will conduct a statewide special election for Proposition 50 on Nov. 4.

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Audrey Tomlin | Bay City News

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September 2, 2025

This OpenAI engineer left her dream job and San Francisco home to move to Stockholm—all because of Trump 2.0

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Miki Habryn can finally sleep at night. For many months, in the run-up to and after President Trump had won the election, that wasn’t the case.

Up until June this year Habryn was living what many would call the American dream. She had a job at ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, surrounded by some of the brightest minds in artificial intelligence. Her pay was comfortably in the six-figures, and she owned a house in San Francisco, the first city she had ever lived in which felt like home.

Her six-year old daughter, Steffi, was enjoying school and her wife, Eden, was thriving in her career as an artist.

But the family couldn’t shake their concern about the direction U.S. politics was moving in. While Habryn was born in Poland and raised in Australia from the age of five, her partner and child had only ever known life in the States.

When President Trump returned to the Oval Office, the family made the decision to leave San Francisco—and Habryn’s dream job—and move to Stockholm, Sweden. There they hope to stay indefinitely.

Habryn said she made the choice to leave the the U.S., where she had lived since 2007, one night in March. She said: “My wife was traveling on the East Coast and I was home with Steffi. And something about that particular night, I was awake worrying about things which was not uncommon, and I just got to the point of: It’s time to go, I can’t just stay here and do nothing, but doing anything comes with such terrible risks for me because of my status.”

“If I came to the attention of, or got arrested by the federal authorities, the outcome of that could be tragic. It turns out that my wife, on the same day, reached the same conclusion.”

Habryn explains the “status” she refers to: “During the campaign it was immigrants and transgender people that was occupying the airways and since I’m both, they’ve got me coming and going effectively.”

The family are not alone in their decision to leave Trump’s America. While it’s hard to pin down the number of people leaving the U.S. every year (the Department of State previously told Fortune it does not keep such records) in 2024 applications from Americans to live in the United Kingdom alone spiked 26% compared to a year prior. More than 6,100 Americans applied for British citizenship last year, a record number.

Immigration experts also previously told Fortune their phones had been ringing off the hook—particularly since that infamous Trump and Biden debate, when many people felt the fate of the November election had been decided. Montreal-based immigration experts Moving2Canada, for example, saw inquiries spike in both 2016 and 2020 and in 2024 saw enquiries triple in volume after the Trump vs. Biden debate.

Life at OpenAI

Habryn is no stranger to working in America’s tech elite: She moved to the U.S. originally to work for Google in Mountain View where she stayed for the next 12 years. Her experience at OpenAI, where she worked from May 2024 to July 2025, is a familiar story to many in Big Tech: An intense atmosphere, “wonderful” people and riveting work.

“It’s challenging,” Habryn said. “I think it’s exciting but I was lucky enough to have a lot of security and confidence in my own abilities—I think without that it would have been very, very hard.”

The prospect of losing her dream role in the research department of one of the world’s most-talked about companies was a key issue which held Habryn back from making the move earlier. While her team was supportive of the decision, ultimately the legalities of Habryn’s work meant it couldn’t move with her.

“It was really hard,” she said. “That was probably the reason it took me as long as it did to make the decision, because honestly I had this period of grief stepping away from this. I’ve been working in tech for a long time … and really the only thing I want to be working on is AI.

“It was hard and I didn’t love making that decision but, ultimately, it was just a question of priority.”

Habryn is confident she will find interesting work when she needs to, and the family are settling into their newly purchased home in Stockholm—the family doubt they will ever return to the U.S. That comes with “guilt”, Habryn says: “I buy the narrative that you should fight for the things that you believe in and that there is value to staying and fighting for that. If it were not for Steffi, I think we would have.”

Ultimately her six-year-old daughter is their focus: “We set aside a lot of things that we love to do [because] we want Steffi to have a routine, a stable home, a stable school and all those things. The hardest thing about this whole move has been worrying about the impact on her and so the priority was that we don’t want to do this again, we’re going to move once, and we want to put down roots and spend the next 15/20 years there.”

Introducing the 2025 Fortune Global 500, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in the world. Explore this year’s list.

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Eleanor Pringle

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September 1, 2025

Monday Morning Lights: Why Serra, Folsom schedule heavyweights in September

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Welcome back to Monday Morning Lights, our weekly feature that sheds more light on the high school football weekend and peeks ahead to the new week. If you haven’t already, please subscribe. Your contributions keep us going.

No matter what happens, Serra and Folsom know that most seasons, they will be in position to compete for section championships at the end of the year.

Which is why both teams go out of their way to schedule exceptionally tough nonleague opponents in September.

This year, Sacramento area power Folsom visited another top team from its area (Grant), bussed to San Mateo to play Serra on Saturday and will fly to Southern California this week to face Mission Viejo.

Week 1: Where to find our complete coverage

Serra opened with Folsom and will also take on De La Salle in San Mateo this Saturday. The Padres will finish their nonleague schedule with a trip to face Southern Section powerhouse St. John Bosco.

After beating Serra 56-42, Folsom coach Paul Doherty admitted that earning Northern California’s berth in the CIF Open Division state championship game is the Bulldogs’ goal this season.

Testing themselves – and winning – against the best teams in the state is an important part of making that a reality.

“Every time you go through it, you’re like, ‘This is a bad idea,’” Doherty said. “Tough schedule, that’s the only way to do it. We’ve won four section (championships) in a row. We were in four NorCals in a row. We’ve won two of them, and we lost two by a total of four points. If we’re going to get better, we have to schedule and we have to plan. That’s the DNA or the blueprint of what we’re trying to do.”

Doherty noted that the programs in SoCal especially are “better than ours,” and playing them gives Folsom something to aspire to moving forward.

Serra, meanwhile, is trying to recapture the form that powered the Padres to a 25-0 record against NorCal foes in 2022 and 2023. That stretch came during a run in which the San Mateo school represented Northern California in the Open state title game three consecutive seasons.

Serra’s strong showing against Folsom on Saturday could be the first sign that the Padres are on their way back to being a top NorCal contender.

“There’s a Nelson Mandela quote that says, ‘I either win or I learn,’” Walsh said. “I want to know what we got and what we don’t have. I’m not trying to stack up wins around here. What we’re trying to do is be WCAL champions and CCS champions. And my philosophy has always been to schedule the best, be a part of the best. Challenge yourself against the best coaches and players, and then you know exactly where you are.”

— Christian Babcock

RIORDAN: FAMILY BUSINESS

Early in the first quarter, Riordan quarterback Mike Mitchell Jr. scanned the field for openings in McClymonds’ defense. After going through his reads, Mitchell locked in on a target he is very familiar with.

Younger brother Maxwell, a sophomore receiver, found the soft spot in the defense on a crossing route, pulled in the pass, and ran in for a 27-yard touchdown.

It was a play that the two had informally rehearsed in the backyard for years, and drilled on the practice field all summer.

“It was unreal,” Max Mitchell told the Bay Area News Group. “We did that every day in the summer, so the work definitely paid off.”

– Joseph Dycus

ACALANES: NEW POSITION … SORT OF

After Grant Ricker grabbed three interceptions in Acalanes’ emotional 33-12 victory, he noted that it was his first start ever at defensive back. He had started at receiver last season for Acalanes’ North Coast Section Division III championship team.

“I have to thank my coaches for teaching me on the fly,” Ricker said.

According to teammate Deonte Littlejohn, that isn’t quite true.

“Actually, Ricker played DB freshman year … and he wasn’t the best,” Littlejohn said. “He had a complete turnaround, and now he’s a dog out there. Playing receiver just helps him track that ball down.”

– Joseph Dycus

DE LA SALLE: JEFFERSON CAN SCOOT

Jaden Jefferson is a fast runner.

De La Salle’s two-way speedster reset the state record in the 100-meter dash last spring, clocking a time of 10.01 seconds at the CIF state meet in Clovis.

But his time caused some controversy.

It was widely speculated by those including Arcadia Invitational meet director Rich Gonzalez that the record-breaking time resulted in part because, he suspected, the starter fired the gun too far from the electronic timing sensor, causing a clock delay.

But CIF stood by its time, and so is Jefferson.

“CIF, they confirmed it, they said they had two clocks running,” Jefferson said. “So I’m not really arguing with the people who don’t believe it. I know what I ran, and I came back a second day to run another time. They said they had two clocks running, and they approved it. So I’m not sure what the other people are talking about.”

De La Salle football coach Justin Alumbaugh isn’t too concerned, either. He knows what Jefferson’s wheels do for his team.

“I think he could have broken 10,” Alumbaugh said. “He slowed up at the end. What I know is he was moving. And football-wise, he passes the eye test for speed. You’ll see him out there. He can scoot. No matter what the exact time is, that dude can run. You get under a 10.3, you’re scooting pretty well.”

— Christian Babcock

NORCAL COMMIT FROM FLORIDA ENJOYS TIME IN GOLDEN STATE

Lakeland-Florida running back and Sacramento State commit Ja’darious Dobie got a little taste of the Cali life when the Dreadnaughts played De La Salle on Friday.

Though Lakeland didn’t get the results it wanted, Dobie said he enjoyed his time in NorCal.

“It was beautiful weather out here and it’s just beautiful scenery,” Dobie said. “I wish we could have come out here and dominated better, but at least we lost in Cali. So it feels good to be home.”

Dobie picked Sacramento State over FBS schools Wake Forest, UNLV, Pittsburgh and Georgia Tech. New Sacramento State coach Brennan Marion is a former Bay Area resident, coaching at St. Patrick-St. Vincent in Vallejo, and playing at Foothill and De Anza colleges in the South Bay.

– Nathan Canilao

MENLO SCHOOL: OPENER SHARED CULTURAL EXPERIENCE

It’s not every year you see a California high school team play a season opener against a squad from New Mexico.

Menlo School welcomed Hózhó Academy, a charter school from Gallup, N.M., on Saturday in Atherton. The unusual matchup brought together two small schools with a number of differences but similar values.

Hózhó Academy is located on the edge of the Navajo Nation in New Mexico, a Native American reservation home to the Diné people. Most of the Hózhó Academy players had not traveled off the reservation before coming to the Bay Area this weekend.

“Coach (Todd) Smith and I really clicked when we talked about our coaching philosophies and the bigger picture of helping shape good, young men,” Hózhó Academy coach Cyle Balok said in a release. “We thought this game could be a special opportunity for both of our teams to meet and use the game as a bridge between two vastly different parts of the country.”

Hózhó Academy traveled to Atherton by bus and made the trip thanks to fundraising from local businesses near Gallup. The two teams shared a pregame dinner Friday, and Menlo hopes the connections they make through the game last beyond Week 1.

“We come from very different parts of the country,” said Smith, Menlo’s head coach. “But we started this friendship and knew this could be much more than a regular game.”

— Christian Babcock

PEEK AHEAD TO WEEK 2

Friday

Campolindo (1-0) at Northgate (1-0), 7 p.m.: Campo was in midseason form last week at Granada.

Los Gatos (0-1) at Liberty (1-0), 7 p.m.: Los Gatos will try to tighten its defense before the long trip to Brentwood.

Menlo-Atherton (0-1) at Acalanes (1-0), 7 p.m.: Acalanes aiming to beat CCS school for second week in a row.

St. Francis (0-1) at McClymonds (0-1), 7 p.m.: Tough trip for St. Francis as Lancers try to bounce back from loss to Cathedral Catholic.

San Jose (1-0) vs. Lincoln-San Jose (1-0) at San Jose City College, 7 p.m.: Will Lincoln’s dominance continue in Big Bone game?

Windsor (1-0) at Hayward (1-0), 7 p.m.: Both teams had impressive season-opening wins.

Saturday

De La Salle (1-0) at Serra (0-1), 2 p.m.: DLS remembers its last visit to Serra, a 28-0 loss two seasons ago.

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Christian Babcock, Nathan Canilao, Joseph Dycus

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September 1, 2025

Clock issues can’t stop Valkyries in win over Caitlin Clark-less Fever

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SAN FRANCISCO — Chase Center turned into a glorified night club on Sunday night.

After electrical issues caused multiple shot clocks to malfunction, and choppy officiating gave way to numerous review stoppages, the fan cam inside the arena was put to work.

The basketball game almost seemed like background noise as fans were asked to dance to a mix of Bay Area classics and new age pop music with each game stoppage. Both the Valkyries and the visiting Indiana Fever were both visibly frustrated by the start-stop nature of Sunday’s game that took two hours and 38 minutes to complete.

But what mattered most is that the Valkyries gave the sold out crowd of 18,064 something to dance for after the game ended.

Golden State Valkyries’ Iliana Rupert (12) scores a 3-point basket against Indiana Fever’s Aerial Powers (23) in the fourth quarter at the Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., on Sunday, Aug. 31, 2025. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

The Valkyries won their third straight game, beating the injury-plagued Indiana Fever 75-63 behind a hot shooting start. The 158-minute game was the longest contest that ended in regulation since the Chicago Sky played the Dallas Wings in a two-hour, 41-minute game on Aug. 6, 2023, per Elias Sports Bureau. Sunday’s game had five clock stoppages in the first half.

The Valkyries attributed the clock malfunctions to a power outage that occurred at Chase Center on Sunday morning.

Iliana Rupert posted a career-high 21 points and hit 5-of-8 shots from the 3-point line. Rookie Janelle Salaün had 10 points, four rebounds and two assists. Veronica Burton finished with eight points, 13 assists and seven rebounds.

“I think it was the first time in all of our lives that we had so much stuff (go on), but it’s not stuff that you can control,” Rupert said after the game. “We really just tried to stay together. The fans obviously helped a lot because you can lose energy really quickly, and they were pushing us.”

A broken shot clock above a basket during the Golden State Valkyries game against the Indiana Fever in the second quarter at the Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., on Sunday, Aug. 31, 2025. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

The Fever were without superstar Caitlin Clark, who missed her 18th straight game with a left groin injury. Former Valkyries guard Aerial Powers scored 17 points off the bench and Kelsey Mitchell had 14 points in the loss.

The Valkyries held the Fever’s other star, Aliyah Boston, to just four points.

“We really tried to be physical with her and try to make the night hard,” Rupert said. “I think we did that really well. So yeah, I’m happy of the work because it was really a team effort to stop her.”

After two different clock stoppages forced a 25-minute delay in the first quarter, the Valkyries went on a run. Golden State hit seven of its eight 3-pointers and took a 25-14 lead after the first 10 minutes.

More stoppages allowed Indiana to get back within striking distance, but Golden State kept the high-paced offense at bay.

The Valkyries led by as much as 20 in the first half behind a 75% shooting quarter from beyond the arc. Rupert and Salaün accounted for 21 of the Valkyries’ 44 first-half points, and the home team led 44-32 after two quarters.

With all the stoppages, the first half lasted a whopping 92 minutes but Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase said the breaks in action helped the Valkyries regroup.

Golden State Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase (35) talks to Golden State Valkyries' Temi Fagbenle (14) during their game against the Indiana Fever in the second quarter at the Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., on Sunday, Aug. 31, 2025. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) — Golden State Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase (35) talks to Golden State Valkyries’ Temi Fagbenle (14) during their game against the Indiana Fever in the second quarter at the Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., on Sunday, Aug. 31, 2025. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

“We did get to talk about defensively, continuing to focus on our game plan and our execution in terms of the defense and what was hurting us,” Nakase said. “We just tried to make it an advantage as best we can.”

Indiana made headway in the third quarter, cutting the Valkyries’ lead to seven going into the final 10 minutes.

Powers cut the Golden State advantage to just five with a layup at the 7:37 mark of the fourth quarter, giving the Fever a much-needed momentum swing.

But just as Indiana was on the verge of cutting the lead to a single possession, Powers fouled Clark’s former Iowa teammate Kate Martin on a 3-pointer right in front of Indiana’s bench and the second-year guard swished the shot to erupt the Chase Center crowd.

Golden State Valkyries' Kate Martin (20) heads to the basket against Indiana Fever's Lexie Hull (10) in the second quarter at the Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., on Sunday, Aug. 31, 2025. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) — Golden State Valkyries’ Kate Martin (20) heads to the basket against Indiana Fever’s Lexie Hull (10) in the second quarter at the Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., on Sunday, Aug. 31, 2025. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

Martin finished with 10 points.

Indiana never got back into the game after Powers’ foul. Carla Leite iced the game when she hit a wild circus shot while getting fouled from the left wing with just over 90 seconds left in the game.

Despite the odd breaks in the game, Nakase credited the crowd for keeping the energy high.

“That’s just great that our crowd doesn’t just get frustrated. They don’t leave. They stay behind us,” Nakase said. “Credit to our fans for just keeping it lively, keeping it entertaining because at the end of the day, we do want to enjoy this time. When we’re all together for two hours and like 45 minutes, we want to put on a show. We want to entertain people, and we want to have almost like a party.”

The Valkyries will return to Chase Center on Tuesday when they play the New York Liberty (7 p.m., KPIX+).

Golden State Valkyries’ Carla Leite (0) scores a basket and a foul against Indiana Fever’s Natasha Howard (6) in the fourth quarter at the Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., on Sunday, Aug. 31, 2025. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

Golden State Valkyries’ Kaila Charles (6) takes a shot against the Indiana Fever in the second quarter at the Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., on Sunday, Aug. 31, 2025. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

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Golden State Valkyries’ Iliana Rupert (12) celebrates her 3-point basket against the Indiana Fever in the fourth quarter at the Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., on Sunday, Aug. 31, 2025. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

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Originally Published: August 31, 2025 at 8:17 PM PDT

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Nathan Canilao

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August 31, 2025

Who could SF Giants call up when rosters expand in September?

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SAN FRANCISCO —It wasn’t too long ago that manager Bob Melvin, having been swept by the Padres at home in mid-August, mentioned the idea of giving his regulars some days off and getting looks at younger players. With the Giants in the midst of a six-game winning streak, those plans are likely on hold.

On Sept. 1, the Giants’ brass will have to decide which two players they select from Triple-A Sacramento to join the big-league roster as rosters expand from 26 to 28. With San Francisco still mathematically alive, president of baseball operations Buster Posey and company may find themselves leaning towards players more equipped to win now.

Here’s a look at the most compelling candidates to be called up when the rosters expand:

(All stats are entering Friday)

Marco Luciano

The Giants have had plenty of opportunities to call up Marco Luciano over the last couple months, especially after having the 23-year-old transition from infield to outfield in the offseason. With less than 30 games remaining, Luciano is still waiting for his first opportunity to play in the majors this season.

Luciano hasn’t exactly dominated with Sacramento, but he’s hit well enough at times to warrant a look with San Francisco.

Overall, Luciano has an .801 OPS with 22 homers and has been nine percent better than league average, by weighted runs created plus (wRC+). Since July, specifically, Luciano is hitting .250/.409/.569 with 10 homers and, by wRC+, has been 49 percent better than league average.

Luciano would’ve likely had a more compelling case to be called up if Luis Matos was struggling, but Matos is 13-for-30 (.433) with three homers and seven RBIs since being recalled from Sacramento.

Jesus Rodriguez

The Giants received four prospects from the New York Yankees in exchange for Camilo Doval, the most intriguing of the bunch being catcher Jesus Rodriguez.

Rodriguez didn’t have many opportunities to catch during his time in the Yankees’ system due to the franchise’s plethora of catching prospects, but he hit well enough that he played around the diamond so the Yankees could get his bat in the lineup. A lifetime .306 hitter in the minors, Rodriguez has also spent time at first base, second base, third base and left field.

Rodriguez is hitting .317/.417/.415 with one homer and eight RBIs over his last 10 games, but it wouldn’t be surprising if the Giants keep Rodriguez in Triple-A so he can continue getting reps at catcher.

Hayden Birdsong

For months, Hayden Birdsong appeared to have made significant strides with his control. He didn’t walk a single batter during spring training, then continued to minimize walks for roughly the first three months of the season. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Birdsong lost his command and ended up back in Triple-A.

Birdsong’s issues with command have persisted with Sacramento. He appeared to make strides by only walking four batters over 12 1/3 innings during his first three starts with the River Cats. By contrast, during his last three starts Birdsong has walked 12 batters over 12 innings.

JT Brubaker

The Giants signed JT Brubaker to a minor-league deal in mid-August after he was released by the Yankees, and it’s not an outlandish proposition that Brubaker makes a start or two for San Francisco in September.

Brubaker, 31, has pitched in four major-league seasons, missing all of ’23 due to Tommy John surgery and spending all of ’24 in the Yankees’ minor-league system. He’s made a pair of starts for Sacramento after being used solely as a reliever for the Yankees, allowing two runs over nine innings in those two outings.

Blade Tidwell

Tidwell was part of the return from the New York Mets in exchange for Tyler Rogers, the others being right-handed José Buttó and outfielder Drew Gilbert. If not for an injury, Tidwell likely would’ve already made his Giants debut.

The 24-year-old right-hander posted a 1.69 ERA in his first three starts with Sacramento, striking out 23 batters over 16 innings, but experienced shoulder discomfort during a bullpen session following his start on Aug. 15.

President of baseball operations Buster Posey said on KNBR that Tidwell is “moving in the right direction” and working on a throwing progression.

“He’s obviously a guy we’re excited about, but we want to make sure that he’s, from a health standpoint, in a good place and doesn’t rush back,” Posey said. “It’s a big arm and somebody that we’re excited to continue to watch as he progresses. All signs seem positive there.”

Tidwell features a deep arsenal of pitching, the core four being his four-seam fastball, sinker, sweeper and slider. Along with those offerings, Tidwell has also flashed a changeup and cutter.

Bryce Eldridge

There’s been no shortage of fans clamoring for top prospect Bryce Eldridge to make his major-league debut. Those voices continue to grow louder every time Eldridge homers.

The only voice that matters, though, is Posey’s and he has repeatedly thrown cold water on the possibility of Eldridge making his debut this season.

“I’d say most likely not,” Posey said on KNBR’s The Murph and Marcus Show. “I feel like I’ve said it 100 times, but Bryce is still 20. He’s still getting his reps as a first baseman. He’s getting his reps as a hitter. Like everybody else, (you) watch the amount of power that Bryce has. It’s hard not to get excited about.

“Talking to Bryce a little bit back in spring training and then listening to how our minor-league staff talks about him, we know that he wants to be a complete player and he’s working on that.”

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Justice delos Santos

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August 31, 2025

SF Giants’ Rodríguez recommended to undergo Tommy John surgery

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SAN FRANCISCO — Randy Rodríguez will have a choice to make in the coming days, but all signs point to one option.

Rodríguez has been recommended to undergo Tommy John surgery on his right elbow by multiple doctors — Giants’ head team orthopedist Dr. Ken Akizuki and Dr. Keith Meister — the Giants announced on Friday.

The 25-year-old All-Star, who has a 1.78 ERA with 67 strikeouts over 50 2/3 innings, will decide his course of action over the weekend. If Rodríguez opts for surgery, the procedure won’t just end the remainder of this season, but will likely sideline him for all of next season.

“From spring training last year to where he is right now, it’s pretty extreme,” said manager Bob Melvin. “Credit to him. Hard work, perseverance, good stuff, finding mechanics that work for him. For a while there, probably the most important role we had as a guy that came in and had to get the big outs. Disappointing, obviously — for him, for us. There’s a timetable in that if he does do it. I’m sure he’ll be healthy and ready to go after that.”

The Giants have exercised caution with Rodríguez, who missed about six weeks last season due to right elbow inflammation. Rodríguez has only pitched on back-to-back days six times this season, the last instance being on July 26 and July 27 against the New York Mets. Despite those best efforts, Rodríguez still appears to be headed under the knife.

With Rodríguez likely missing all of next season — the timetable to return is roughly 12 to 18 months — the Giants’ brass will be tasked with bolstering their bullpen in the offseason.

San Francisco’s bullpen enters Friday with the second-best ERA in the majors (3.22), but that unit looks significantly different now compared to the beginning of the season.

Along with Rodríguez, left-hander Erik Miller is currently recovering from a left elbow sprain and could be done for the season following a setback in his recover. At the trade deadline, the Giants traded Tyler Rogers to the New York Mets and Camilo Doval to the New York Yankees. Still, the Giants have a foundation in the bullpen upon which they can build.

Ryan Walker lost the closer role to Doval in late May following extended struggles but has been effective since the demotion. With the help of a mechanical tweak, Walker is posting a 1.77 ERA with 23 strikeouts over 20 1/3 innings since July. Now, Walker will return to the closer role for the foreseeable future.

“It sucks,” Walker said of Rodríguez’s injury on Wednesday. “You never want to see guys go down like that. … He’s good mentally, doing whatever he needs to do to get that resolved. What’s great about our ‘pen is that we’ve got everybody’s backs. We’ll fill the void right now and we’ll get the job done.”

Right-hander José Buttó will likely have more opportunities in higher leverage roles as well. Buttó, acquired from the Mets as part of the Rogers trade, owns a 2.38 ERA and 2.24 FIP over 11 1/3 innings since joining the Giants. Notably, Buttó has gone from having a 12.2 percent career walk rate with the Mets to 7.1 percent with the Giants.

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Justice delos Santos

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August 29, 2025

Appeals court blocks Trump administration from ending legal protections for 600,000 Venezuelans

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A federal appeals court on Friday blocked the Trump administration’s plans to end protections for 600,000 people from Venezuela who have had permission to live and work in the United States.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California upheld a lower court ruling that maintained temporary protected status, or TPS, for Venezuelans while the case proceeded through court.

An email to the Department of Homeland Security for comment was not immediately returned.

The 9th Circuit panel found that plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claim that the department had no authority to vacate or set aside a prior TPS extension because the governing statute written by Congress does not permit for it.

“In enacting the TPS statute, Congress designed a system of temporary status that was predictable, dependable, and insulated from electoral politics,” the court wrote.

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco found in March that plaintiffs were likely to prevail on their claim that the administration overstepped its authority in terminating the protections and were motivated by racial animus in doing so. Chen ordered a freeze on the terminations, but the Supreme Court reversed him without explanation, which is common in emergency appeals.

It is unclear what effect Friday’s ruling will have on the estimated 350,000 Venezuelans whose protections expired in April. Protections for another group of 250,000 Venezuelans are set to expire Sept. 10.

Congress authorized temporary protected status as part of the Immigration Act of 1990. It allows the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to grant legal immigration status to people fleeing countries experiencing civil strife, environmental disaster or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions” that prevent a safe return to that home country.

In ending the protections, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that conditions in both Haiti and Venezuela had improved and that it was not in the national interest to allow migrants from the two countries to stay on for what is a temporary program.

Millions of Venezuelans have fled political unrest, mass unemployment and hunger. The country is mired in a prolonged crisis brought on by years of hyperinflation, political corruption, economic mismanagement and an ineffectual government.

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August 29, 2025

The Wild, Citywide Scavenger Hunt That Ate San Francisco

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Some of the missions proved particularly vexing. One required climbing hundreds of steps up to Grandview Park and using binoculars to spot letters painted on the ground across the city. I got to the top of the steps, gasping for breath, and found around a dozen people already looking for their next clue. More than one had made the steep journey two days in a row.

“Pursuit players will do basically whatever we ask them to,” Leong said. Then, with a laugh, “I promise we are not a cult.”

San Franpsyche

San Francisco has a long history of monkeyshines: The Merry Pranksters, the Suicide Club, the Cacophony Society, Burning Man, the Jejune Institute, the drunken melee of Santacon.

This new era of Bay Area madcaps has the ultimate goal of ensuring that people have a good time. Like their predecessors, they have relentlessly committed to the bit.

Danielle Egan, one of Pursuit’s ringleaders, works in “Product BizOps” at LinkedIn but moonlights as an artist and all-around mischief maker. She, along with fellow Pursuit organizers Leong, Theo Bleir, and Riley Walz (himself an internet-famous prankster), have been behind elaborate stunts like Mehran’s Steakhouse, a fake New York fine dining restaurant that existed for one night only in 2024. In San Francisco, Egan hosted a Sit Club—a parody of run clubs that invited participants to gather and simply just plop down somewhere. For Pursuit, she says there’s an art to crafting puzzles that are just the right amount of frustrating.

“It can’t be too easy,” Egan says. “There is a middle ground. Some people should struggle.”

Other mission creators used the opportunity to build a sense of community online. Artist Danielle Baskin, who planned the laundromat and music shop mission, had players begin her mission by drawing a doodle of Percy and submitting their favorite song. Upon completing the quest, they were rewarded with a link to a 100-hour-long playlist made up of all the songs players had entered. The accompanying doodles for each song are available on a companion website.

Baskin flicked through the drawings coming in on the first day the puzzle had been released, toggling on and off a switch that read TTP. That acronym means “time-to-penis,” a term in gaming development that refers to how long it takes an online service to become inundated with dicks.

“There are actually only three penises so far,” Baskin says, surprised. “Our players are really very friendly.”

Puzzle Trouble

Pursuit ran into its share of technical issues. In the first days of the game, the Percy support line got so many sign-ups and messages that the group’s Twilio account was maxed out. For the first couple hours of one mission, the QR codes didn’t work and had to be swapped out.

Pursuit players work together to unlock a box containing binoculars that they used to spot clues from the top of Grandview Park.

Photograph: Boone Ashworth

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Boone Ashworth

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August 29, 2025

San Francisco set to launch crackdown on RV encampments

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San Francisco is set to launch its crackdown on RV encampments Friday, as new parking restrictions take effect.

A 30-day mandatory waiting period has ended, and the city is now turning to “progressive enforcement,” a process the mayor and city leaders say will be compassionate and complex.

The city is slated to roll out its multi-phased plan starting Friday that will consist of a gradual buildup to the new two-hour parking limit.

Ginger Conejero Saab has the details in the video above.

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NBC Bay Area staff

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August 29, 2025

At least 13 migrants detained by ICE in San Francisco as arrests soar

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ICE agents detained at least 13 more migrants in San Francisco on Thursday, as arrests by the agency continue to soar across California.

At least seven migrants were detained during a morning ICE operation at an apartment complex in the area of 10th and Harrison streets, according to Milli Atkinson, director of the San Francisco Immigrant Legal Defense Program.

“I think it’s probably the largest single arrest in San Francisco that we’ve been able to confirm through rapid response,” Atkinson said.

A video posted to Reddit showed three men handcuffed on a sidewalk surrounded by masked agents. At least four others, not pictured in the video, were also detained, according to Atkinson.

She said the exact circumstances around the arrests are still unclear, but attorneys with the city’s Rapid Response Network are scrambling to meet with the detainees and gather more information.

“They have so many people that they’ve detained this morning that it’s going to be a couple hours before they’re processed and we know exactly what’s going to happen in those cases,” Atkinson said.

Atkinson encouraged anyone with information to call the Rapid Response Network’s 24-hour hotline.

Another six migrants were also arrested Thursday following hearings at the immigration court on Sansome Street, Atkinson confirmed.

“The courthouse arrests seem to align with their practice over the last two months of trying to get cases dismissed so they can take away people’s rights to apply for asylum and put them in expedited proceedings,” Atkinson said. “Those we’ve been seeing pretty consistently every week at the court.”

ICE did not immediately respond to NBC Bay Area’s request for comment but has consistently said the agency is using a process called expedited removal to fast-track deportations of migrants who don’t have permission to be in the U.S.

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Michael Bott

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August 28, 2025

Tag: San Francisco

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