Diamondbacks’ LuJames Groover hopes to make most of MLB call-up

PHOENIX – LuJames “Gino” Groover III needed only one word to describe his first 24 hours as a Major League Baseball player:

“Surreal.”

Getting the call was the culmination of his life’s work and the realization of a dream. For his family, it started out as a nightmare.

“First thing I thought something was wrong, because I was in the bed asleep,” his father, LuJames Groover II, said on the Diamondbacks’ June 6 broadcast.

Like any parent, the Groovers thought a 2 a.m. phone call from their son meant disaster. Fortunately, this call was the opposite.

“My wife jumped up, came running in the room hollering,” Groover II said. “I jumped up and I said, ‘What’s wrong now?’ She said, ‘Gino just got called up.’”

The brief panic was immediately replaced with celebration.

“I said, ‘You got to be kidding me,’ and then he was on the phone,” he recalled.

“He said, ‘Y’all ready to come to the game?’ I said, ‘Man, we already coming to the game.’”

The family made the trip to Phoenix for Groover III’s June 5 debut, just like they’ve done every step of the way.

“(They) came to support me all throughout college, they’ve been to Hillsboro, they’ve been to Amarillo, came to Reno,” Groover III said. “They came to every stop at least once and they were able to come here as well, in the biggest stage I can play on.”

He called it “a blessing” to give his parents the news, knowing how much they’ve sacrificed throughout his career.

“I think I owe just as much to them as I do for myself,” Groover III said. “They deserve all the credit. Driving me to places, spending their time, money, effort, making sure I had the best equipment. They’ve supported me my whole life on this journey that we’ve been on.”

His parents were more nervous watching his MLB debut than he was playing.

“I might’ve been a little bit nervous for him because I know how hard he worked to get to this point,” his father said. “I just wanted him to be successful, and come out and give the fans something that they’re looking for.”

Throughout the game, Groover III was able to slow things down.

“Taking the field, I think I was a little nervous,” he said. “Everything’s happening so fast, but after you get that first play out of the way, it calms down a little bit. You remember it’s the same game. Just go out there and have fun, because that’s what makes it worthwhile.”

After a wrist injury delayed his first full pro season, the Diamondbacks’ No. 10 prospect spent all of 2025 in Double-A Amarillo, where he earned a selection to the MLB All-Star Futures Game in his home state of Georgia. Groover III began this season in Triple-A Reno, where he forced the club’s hand to call him up.

“It was a situation where Groove pushed his way into this opportunity,” manager Torey Lovullo told reporters ahead of Groover III’s debut. “Sometimes things happen through injury, there’s other reasons for call-ups, but this was a situation where he was really progressing on both sides of the baseball, and we felt like it was a really good opportunity to get him here and show us what he’s able to do.”

The situation might be the fact that Groover III reached base safely in 36 straight games from April 3 to May 17, the third-longest streak in professional baseball this season. The Diamondbacks are confident his bat-to-ball skills will translate to the major leagues.

“We feel like he’s very capable of going out and stringing some real quality at-bats and games together,” Lovullo said. “He’s here to get at-bats, he’s not here to sit on the bench. If that was the case, we’d still develop him in Triple-A.”

These skills have always been on display, going back to Groover III’s college days.

“The first thing that stood out to me was, obviously, his ability to hit,” said J.T. Jarrett, his teammate at North Carolina State in 2022. “It’s kind of effortless how well and consistently he can drive the ball to all fields.

“He doesn’t try to do too much. I remember always thinking that Gino’s work was never overdone, it was just pretty simple and straightforward. The simplicity of it, the fundamentals of his swing, and approach, and training and practice, it speaks for itself because that’s how you get a 36 game on-base streak.”

Groover III had a 24-game and 27-game hit streak that season alone. An incoming transfer from UNC Charlotte, he instantly became a key member of the Wolfpack on and off the field.

“When everyone shows up in August, there’s a decent chunk of the team that is new and have never really met each other,” Jarrett said. “But with Gino, kind of instantly he’s cutting up, and loud, and smiling and laughing.”

Groover III is making the same connections in the pros.

“He’s my day one,” outfielder Tommy Troy said.

Troy was the Diamondbacks’ first-round pick in the 2023 MLB Draft, when Groover III was the team’s second-round selection. Although Troy debuted shortly before Groover III, their connection has never wavered.

“We both got drafted together, got really close really quickly and it’s nice to see we’re both working our way up together and here in the big leagues,” Troy said.

While Groover III has recorded just five hits through his first 31 at-bats, he has hit the ball hard 52% of the time and squared it up 37% of the time. Both metrics would be considered “great” by Baseball Savant with a qualifying number of plate appearances. He acknowledges the challenges of not seeing immediate results and knows they are just part of the process.

“Trying not to get frustrated as a player, you know, maybe you’ve done something a certain way your whole entire life, and you’ve got to make adjustments,” he said. “It feels like it needs to happen so fast, you probably want it instantaneously, but development’s not linear.”

He can feel the improvement as he reaches two weeks in the big leagues.

“As you just go out there, you continue to play, you continue to get more reps under your belt, more games under your belt, more at-bats, things like that, you start to find things that work,” Groover III said.

Although Groover III’s first career MLB hit didn’t occur in his first career game, it made it more special when he got it the day after. June 6 also happens to be the birthday of his grandfather, LuJames Groover.

The corner infielder is ready to make his name a staple of the lineup.

“I’m really just trying to go out there and focus on controllables,” Groover III said. “You know, control the zone, swing at good pitches, hit the ball hard, things like that and let everything take care of itself as we continue to adjust.

“I’m definitely more comfortable out there,” he said. “Finally get to relax a little bit and realize, ‘OK, I belong here as well.’”