Giants coach Gary Pettis ready to bring ‘aggressive’ mindset to uneven offense

MILWAUKEE — Dressed head to toe, appropriately, in a sweatsuit the color of the Golden Gate Bridge, Gary Pettis paced down the foul line and behind the batting cage, shaking hands, making acquaintances and catching up with old friends.

The 68-year-old baseball lifer walked with an aura only achieved through experience.

Pettis, hired by the Giants this week to replace a first-time third base coach whose lack of seasoning caught up to him, had little time to take stock of the group of players he will soon be in charge of sending or stopping toward home plate.

He will assume the duties in the third-base coach’s box for the first time in a Giants uniform — No. 81 — Friday at Wrigley Field, a rarely seen midseason hire from outside the organization.

“I know a few guys but not most of them,” said Pettis, who at least at first will lean on a wealth of knowledge built over an 11-year playing career and 22 more years in the coaching ranks at the sport’s highest level, including for three World Series teams and eight division winners. 

“I’m gonna have to see who runs well, maybe take a chance with those guys. And then there’s some guys you may not take a chance with, and that’s something I’m going to have to learn on the fly.”

Asked to describe his style of coaching at third, Pettis chuckled.

“Most people would say aggressive,” he said. “That’s the way I played, and that’s the way I coach.”

Whether the Giants have the personnel to allow Pettis to windmill his arm as much as he would like is something he will have to figure out. But there is plenty of room for improvement.

Beyond first-year base coach Hector Borg’s troubles deciding to send runners or give them the stop sign in more than one high-profile situation, Giants baserunners have been the worst in the majors according to FanGraphs’ all-encompassing value metric. They have stolen only 15 bases — seven fewer than the next-closest team — and scored the third-fewest runs while being thrown out at third or home more than all but six other teams.

“Whether it was rushed or whatever it might be, he was kind of thrust into a big position,” manager Tony Vitello, also in his first year, said of Borg, who will stay on in player development. “I think just one thing after another it became a difficult environment for everybody.”

When the Giants reassigned Borg last week, they cycled through a handful of possible replacements but landed on Pettis at the recommendation of Dusty Baker, who’s in an advisory role for president of baseball operations Buster Posey.

Vitello helped run point on the hiring process from a spacious hotel room in Denver, consulting everyone from Baker, Ron Washington, Harold Reynolds and even Drew Gilbert, who crossed paths briefly with Pettis as a minor leaguer in the Astros’ system.

“That was about as big of a hotel space as I’ve had and probably covered every square inch of that,” Vitello said. “I really envision it being a good thing because we’re looking for anything that’s kind of a fresh start or a new thing to begin with.”

Pettis had been out of coaching since the end of his tenure with the Astros, where he was the third base coach on Baker’s staff and for two other managers, after the 2024 season.

He also coached first and third base for Washington, now the Giants’ infield coach, when he was the Rangers’ manager.

“He was an excellent baserunning guy, so, you know, he just coaches third base the way he ran the bases,” Washington said. “He knows the balls you should score on and the ones you shouldn’t score on. … There’s nothing in the game of baseball that he hasn’t experienced.”

Washington, an experienced base coach himself, wasn’t an option because of his quadruple-bypass heart surgery he had last year. Longtime coach Ron Wotus, who took over as interim third-base coach, also wasn’t up to the task physically and has family commitments.

In seven games, Wotus offered an example of “what a good third-base coach is supposed to look like,” said Washington, who explained why experience is so important.

“You can’t be rigid out there. And young guys that have never done it, inexperienced guys, they’re rigid,” Washington said. “Their thought is to not make a mistake. I never have a thought of not making a mistake on my f—ing mind.”

It was an easy yes for the Oakland native who grew up playing with Rickey Henderson, admiring Willie Mays and attending games at Candlestick Park and Oakland Coliseum.

Pettis first heard from the Giants on Sunday, less than 72 hours after they moved on from Borg, and got a call from Posey the following day formally offering him the position.

“It was an opportunity to come back home,” said Pettis, who is based out of San Vicente now and whose daughter, one of four children, lives in Daly City. “The cream-colored uniforms were always one of my favorites. I always wanted to wear it. And now I get the chance.”

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