The past week or so has been pretty rough for the Giants, particularly their pitching staff. Jeff Samardzija will begin the season on the disabled list with a pectoral injury and on Friday, Madison Bumgarner broke his hand, likely shelving him for a big portion of the 2018 season. Tuesday, the hits kept on coming. Closer Mark Melancon might have to start the season on the DL himself, due to feeling something amiss in his surgically-repaired right arm.
"We're going to see how he's doing tomorrow," manager Bruce Bochy said to NBC Bay Area. "We're just not going to pitch him right now. We're hoping he's all good for Thursday but we don't know right now if that's going to be the case. We're just letting him play catch right now. That's all."
Melancon, who turns 33 on Wednesday, was one of the best closers in baseball from 2013-16 before signing with the Giants for four years and $62 million prior to last season. He dealt with injuries through most of last season and only managed 32 appearances with a 4.50 ERA. He had surgery last September to repair a right pronator strain.
Having a fully healthy Melancon this season pitch back to form would have gone a long way in getting the Giants back into contention. Instead, he appears to still be recovering from the surgery. Should he be forced to miss time, the closer job likely goes to newly-signed lefty Tony Watson, but righty Sam Dyson is also an option.
The Melancon news wasn't the last of the bad news when it came to Giants pitchers, either. There was also this:
Fernandez, 22, had a 1.17 ERA in Low Class A in 2016 and 3.26 in Class A last season. He's been knocked around some this spring, but did post 12 strikeouts in 7 1/3 innings. I guess the upside is the Giants don't have to send him back to the Rockies if he goes on the DL.
Still, the rest of the Giants' pitching staff should be in bubble wrap on their trip to Los Angeles to open the season with the Dodgers on Thursday.