U-T San Diego reports Padres catcher Yasmani Grandal, who isn't eligible to make his season debut until May 28 because of a 50-game suspension, isn't expected to start swinging a bat until late February because of a hand injury that plagued him at the end of the 2012 season. Grandal did not swing a bat this offseason after he finished last season with two inflamed tendons on the middle finger of his left hand. Grandal said he played the last month of the season with the injury. “It didn’t hurt to catch because the ball would hit the finger straight on,” Grandal said. "But when I rolled my finger to either side, it hurt. I was OK hitting from the right side of the plate. But from the left side, I was swinging one-handed. I had a little celebration every time I saw the other team had a left-handed starter. So my main focus this offseason was catching, which was good because I needed to work on my catching more than my hitting. In a weird way, the injury probably helped me because I was forced to concentrate on one thing, catching.”
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