Everyone in PK Park collectively froze on June 22 when they thought the Eugene Emeralds had blown a 4-2 lead with a two-out triple in the top of the ninth. But it was Emeralds fundamentals coach Lipso Nava who noticed a miniscule detail: the runner had missed third base.
Manager Dennis Pelfrey wasn’t fully convinced, but Nava was adamant. The Emeralds appealed, and, to the shock of everyone, the runner was called out and the Emeralds won their seventh straight game.
The moment was indicative of an overall theme for the Emeralds this year: More often than not, things go their way, and more often than not, they come through in the clutch.
“It doesn’t matter who it is,” Pelfrey said. “It’s somebody different typically every night.”
Pelfrey is in the midst of not just his first season in the Giants organization, but his first season in any affiliated baseball organization. He’s led the first-place Emeralds to a 33-20 record, while creating a culture held up by a sturdy foundation — one preticated on intelligent risk-taking and success.
Pelfrey joined the Giants organization in 2020 after spending nine years as a hitting coach and manager for the Florence Freedom of the Independent Frontier League. There he posted a 261-218 managerial record.
“It was one of those things that I wanted to prove to myself first that I could have some success,” Pelfrey said. “And just like a player, hoping that someone took notice of what I was doing, what my teams were doing.”
Pelfrey’s talents have translated well to the High-A West, where the Emeralds lost just one series all season in a tight race with the Everett AquaSox for first place. Despite the increase in talent and competition, Pelfrey’s philosophy from when he was managing his independent ball teams hasn’t changed.
“What I was trying to do in independent ball was develop players and get them better and have them prepared so when they do get picked up by an affiliate team, they were fully prepared and ready to go,” he said. “At this level, it’s really the same concept. I want to develop players and make sure that they’re prepared for the next level when they go to Double-A or Triple-A or even the big leagues.”
While this team has been operating like a well-oiled machine, one of the most notable storylines of the season has been the strikeout numbers the pitching staff has put up. They lead the High-A West with 582 punchouts in 465 2/3 innings, good for an 11.25 K/9.
While strikeouts are up not only league-wide, but throughout the sport, what the Emeralds are doing is undeniably impressive. Since 2005 — as far back as minor league stats go — the highest full-season team K/9 is 11.11, set by both the 2018 Quad Cities River Bandits and the 2019 Fayetteville Woodpeckers.
“The talent is what’s doing it,” Pelfrey said. “And I think the mentality that we give them and… showing that we have faith in putting them in big spots.”
It hasn’t just been one or even a few pitchers leading the charge, either. Both the rotation (10.53 K/9) and the bullpen (11.94 K/9) have put up dominant marks, with contributions from players up and down the roster. Pelfrey credits this to the variety of arms that his team features.
“We have a lot of different types of arms, which is really nice,” he said. “Different arm angles, different velos, different best pitches for each guy. It’s really like a buffet option for us.”
Not only does the team have different types of pitchers, but Pelfrey likes to mix up his usage of them and force players to step outside of their comfort zones.
Case in point was reliever Tyler Schimpf on June 23. On the night his family was in the crowd to see him play professional baseball for the first time ever, he recorded a five-out save with three strikeouts to shut the door on the Emeralds’ season-high eighth consecutive win.
“All these things led up to him having a big moment,” Pelfrey said. “Coming into [the game], it really helped him get through that situation, which was probably the biggest moment of his career if not for our season.”
For Pelfrey, putting different players in different positions is all in the name of player development. Their talent has gotten them this far, and for a roster full of players who all want to make the big leagues one day, the work they’re putting in now is about taking the next step to making those dreams a reality.
“Me and [pitching coach] Alan Quijano, we’ll try and put guys in situations that they’ve never been in,” Pelfrey said, “or a high-leverage situation where they’ve always been a long-relief guy, where we can close the game out for the guy just to see if he can do it, and to let him know that we have the confidence in him doing it. And I think they step up their game when they see that we have faith in them.”
Fear of failure doesn’t come into play in these scenarios, Pelfrey said; in fact, with a game as tough as baseball, failure can often play a major part in a player’s development.
“Even if they fail at that situation, they’ll get another opportunity down the road once we iron out what happened,” Pelfrey said.
This philosophy contributes to the winning culture that Pelfrey is trying to create in his first season with the Emeralds.
“There’s a lot of good baseball players out there that play on teams that don’t win,” he said. “I think if we can create guys that have that knack for finding ways to win games, I think that it makes for a much better environment and a fun season.”
A big part of what contributes to this winning culture is working and tinkering with different things on a daily basis to create the best individual players possible, and ultimately, the best team.
“Every day we’re trying to help a guy with his swing, or help a guy with his grip on his pitch, or his mentality on the mound,” Pelfrey said. “All these different things kind of come into play in the development of a player.”
And despite some occasional hiccups, such as walks coming back to bite the pitchers and the occasional offensive dry spell, there’s a certain resiliency that has continued to drive this team and keep them afloat.
“I think they do a really good job of picking each other up,” Pelfrey said. For example, in June 23’s game, “we had that sixth inning where our defense kind of melted down a little bit, and fundamentally we just lost focus for a second and got behind in that game –– but immediately picked each other right back up and got back in the driver’s seat of that game.”
This fits into an overall theme of the players holding each other accountable, Pelfrey said. He described them as often giving constructive criticism, as opposed to coming down too hard on anyone. More than anything, these players just have high expectations for each other.
But to Pelfrey, winning isn’t just about the score; it’s about the way they play the game on a daily basis.
“I just want to keep progressing,” Pelfrey said. “When I talk about winning, and when the Giants talk about winning, it is not the scoreboard at the end of the day… It is more about, when we leave the field that day, were we the better team fundamentally… were we the better group of guys going to battle?”
But with the Emeralds enjoying a first-place season, the team has made sure not to stay too serious and to have a little fun on the side too. The atmosphere at PK Park has been energetic, with mascot races, dance-offs and general manager Allan Benevides’ regular interactions with the fans.
“It’s really cool to be around these guys because they’re a bunch of different personalities, they get along really well, they joke with each other,” Pelfrey said.
The Emeralds are in the midst of their first year as a full-season, 120-game club, so there’s still a lot of baseball left, but Pelfrey expects his squad to hold their lead through the summer and prove that they’re the best team in the High-A West.
“I’d really like to win 80 games and really set ourselves apart from everybody,” Pelfrey said. “And let everybody know that the Giants, not only in High-A, but our entire organization from the big leagues all the way down is top notch, and we’re the gold standard of baseball.”
