The San Jose Giants are 2025 California League champions!
The Giants swept the Inland Empire 66ers two-games-to-none in the best-of-three Championship Series to complete a perfect run through the playoffs and win their eighth title in team history. San Jose opened the series with a 7–3 Game 1 victory at Excite Ballpark before securing the championship on the road following a 4–2 win in Game 2 down in San Bernardino.
The Giants posted a league-best 81–51 record during the regular season and then went undefeated in the playoffs with back-to-back sweeps of Fresno in the Division Series and Inland Empire in the Championship Series. It’s also San Jose’s second league title in the last five years (2021).
Both games of the Championship Series saw the Giants use decisive sixth-inning rallies and dominant work from the bullpen to secure victories. The series opened with San Jose’s final home game of the season and a pitcher’s duel between the Giants’ Keyner Martinez and Inland Empire’s Dylan Jordan. Martinez began his start by retiring 11 straight Sixers hitters before a two-out run in the top of the fourth gave Inland Empire a 1–0 lead. The Giants, meanwhile, had been held off the board until the bottom of the fourth as a single from Trevor Cohen and a pair of walks to Diego Cartaya and Walker Martin loaded the bases with two down. Then with Cam Maldonado at the plate, an errant pick-off throw down the right field line from 66ers catcher Marlon Quintero allowed both Cohen and Cartaya to score for a 2–1 Giants advantage.
Martinez maintained the lead with a scoreless top of the fifth, but a two-run home run from Inland Empire star center fielder Raudi Rodriguez in the sixth inning put the 66ers back ahead at 3–2. Martinez finished his start surrendering three runs over 5 1/3 innings with three strikeouts.
San Jose though immediately answered with a two-run home run of their own in the bottom of the sixth inning. Cohen led off the frame with a single and then with one down, Cartaya stepped to the plate and launched a towering two-run homer to left. The home run was Cartaya’s first hit of the playoffs and it put the Giants in the lead at 4–3.
https://medium.com/media/0c003147c6c4cd51d62e00ac2fedf91e/hrefSan Jose would then add-on in the seventh and eighth innings to increase their advantage. In the bottom of the seventh, Jhonny Level singled, stole two bases and scored on Cohen’s two-out single to make it 5–3. Cohen would finish the night 3-for-4 with two runs and an RBI. Then in the eighth, three straight one-out singles from Martin, Maldonado and pinch-hitter Jose Astudillo produced another run. Moments later, a wild pitch brought in Maldonado for a 7–3 cushion.
Ricardo Estrada earned the win out of the Giants bullpen after tossing 1 2/3 scoreless innings. With the lead at a single run, Estrada pitched around a leadoff double in the top of the seventh to maintain the San Jose advantage. Closer Cade Vernon then fired two perfect innings to finish the game notching the Game 1 victory.
Needing just one more win to take home the title, the Giants traveled to Southern California and San Manuel Stadium in San Bernardino for Game 2 of the series. Luis De La Torre was San Jose’s starting pitcher and yielded a single run in the bottom of the first on a two-out RBI single before firing back-to-back scoreless frames in the second and third. The Giants then tied the game in the top of the fourth when Lisbel Diaz blasted a one-out triple off the left center field wall and scored a batter later when Cartaya grounded an RBI single into left. The Sixers, however, quickly responded in the bottom of the inning with a run of their own to take back the lead at 2–1.
De La Torre pitched four innings in his start allowing two runs with five strikeouts.
Hunter Dryden, who shined in Game 1 of the Division Series out of the bullpen, relieved De La Torre to begin the bottom of the fifth and promptly struck out two in a perfect inning to keep the deficit at a run. The Giants then pushed across three runs in the top of the sixth to take the lead for good.
Three straight walks to Lorenzo Meola, Cohen and Diaz to start the pivotal sixth inning loaded the bases with none out. Cartaya then added to his Championship Series RBI total with a single into shallow right plating Meola to tie the game 2–2 as the bases remained loaded. Martin was up next and he worked a full-count walk scoring Cohen to give San Jose their first lead. A Maldonado line drive single to right then brought home Diaz for a 4–2 advantage.
The four runs scored would prove to be enough for the Giants in Game 2 as Dryden continued his dazzling postseason. The right-hander, who was exclusively a starting pitcher during the regular season (2.90 ERA in 21 starts), fired a quick 1–2–3 bottom of the sixth to preserve the two-run lead. The 66ers collected a leadoff single in the seventh, but Dryden responded by setting down the next three hitters on only seven pitches. In the eighth, there was another leadoff single, but the Inland Empire runner, Harold Coll, was later thrown out at second attempting to steal as part of another scoreless inning.
Dryden returned to the mound in the bottom of the ninth with the score still at 4–2 as the Giants needed only three more outs for the championship. A one-pitch out on a fly ball to right off the bat of Kevin Bruggeman started the inning before Quintero bounced out to Martin at third for the second out. Johan Macias kept Inland Empire in the game with a single to left, which brought the potential tying run to the plate. San Jose manager Ydwin Villegas would then summon Vernon from the bullpen to face Caleb Ketchup, who hit a soaring fly ball to deep left center that was caught by Diaz on the warning track to end the game and spark a Giants championship celebration.
https://medium.com/media/3c20f385ddabea4259262f53386f674f/hrefDryden was the winning pitcher in the clinching victory after tossing 4 2/3 scoreless innings with three hits allowed, no walks and three strikeouts. In his two postseason relief appearances, Dryden did not allow a run in 8 2/3 innings and struck out 13. Vernon collected the save in both Championship Series wins and had three saves total in the Giants’ four playoff games.
San Jose’s 2025 championship season saw the club set a team record by averaging 6.1 runs per game during the regular season. In addition to leading the Cal League in runs scored, the Giants also boasted the top ERA. San Jose’s 3.50 team ERA was the lowest by a Giants team in 10 years. San Jose’s 81 regular season wins led the league and were the most by a Giants team since 2013. The Giants owned a league-best +251 run differential and finished with the best record in all of Single-A. It was also just the second time in team history that the Giants swept through the playoffs without a loss (2021). Ydwin Villegas was named California League Manager of the Year for a second straight season while Jacob Bresnahan earned the league’s Pitcher of the Year award. Dakota Jordan, Carlos Gutierrez, Jean Carlos Sio and Jakob Christian were also named California League All-Stars at the end of the season. 66 players saw action for the Giants during the season, 11 of which were with the club for the entire year: Jacob Bresnahan, Lisbel Diaz, Hunter Dryden, Evan Gray, Robert Hipwell, Gerelmi Maldonado, Walker Martin, Niko Mazza, Juan Perez, Ryan Slater & Cade Vernon.
The 2026 San Jose Giants season begins on Friday, April 3 in Stockton. The home opener at Excite Ballpark is set for Tuesday, April 7 versus the Visalia Rawhide.
Giants Win California League Championship! was originally published in Inside the San Jose Giants on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.