Giants add asst. hitting coaches Bernard, Minor to 2025 coaching staff

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Giants announced the hiring of a pair of assistant hitting coaches on Thursday, adding Oscar Bernard and Damon Minor to manager Bob Melvin’s coaching staff for 2025.

Bernard and Minor will work under hitting coach Pat Burrell and fill the vacancies created by the departures of Justin Viele and Pedro Guerrero, who left to take coaching jobs with the Rangers and Marlins, respectively.

Bernard, 41, spent the past nine seasons with the Padres organization and served as an assistant hitting coach on Melvin’s big league coaching staff in San Diego in 2023. He spent this past season working as the Padres’ Minor League hitting coordinator, a position he also held from 2017-22. A native of San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic, Bernard is a native Spanish speaker, which should help connect with young Giants hitters such as Heliot Ramos, Marco Luciano and Luis Matos.

Bernard signed with the Cubs as a non-drafted free agent in April 2001 and played in the Minors from 2003-07, making appearances as both a position player and a pitcher. He began his coaching career with the Rangers organization (2008-12) and also worked with hitting prospects in the Cubs’ system (2013-15) before being hired by the Padres.

Minor, 50, was promoted to the Giants' big league coaching staff after spending the previous nine seasons working as Triple-A Sacramento’s hitting coach. A 12th-round Draft pick of the Giants in 1996, Minor reached the Majors four years later and batted .232 with a .738 OPS over parts of four seasons in San Francisco. He spent five seasons working as a Minor League hitting instructor for the Marlins before returning to the Giants organization prior to the 2016 season.

The Giants also announced that Taira Uematsu has been elevated to Major League quality control coach after serving as an assistant coach for three seasons. San Francisco isn’t expected to replace its other assistant coach, Alyssa Nakken, who recently joined the Guardians as an assistant director of player development.