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Injury bug infecting Giants’ prospect pool, Slater latest to suffer serious setback

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On the same day the Giants honored their left fielder of the past, Barry Bonds, by unveiling a plaque featuring Bonds on the Wall of Fame outside of AT&T Park, San Francisco received harsh news about its potential left fielder of the future.

On Saturday evening, Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy learned that rookie left fielder Austin Slater tore the adductor muscle in his right hip, which could keep Slater out of the lineup for the remainder of the regular season.

“It looks like he’s down for awhile unfortunately, for the kid,” Bochy said. “He’s doing a great job, he’s getting a chance to show what he can do up here and he’s had a pretty good setback here. It looks like 8-to-10 weeks with his groin strain and we’ll just have to rehab him and get him ready and hopefully before the end of the season have him back out there.”

The 24-year-old outfielder became the 10th different Giants’ player to start a game in left field this season following his early June call up, and worked his way into the team’s lineup with steady play and a mature approach at the plate. Slater hit .290 in his first 100 at-bats at the big league level, and recorded seven extra base hits including three home runs as well as 13 RBIs.

The Stanford product was the Giants’ eighth round draft choice back in 2014, and rose to the Major League level after a slew of injuries and inconsistency plagued San Francisco in the outfield at the beginning of the season.

Slater confirmed Sunday morning that the adductor muscle in his hip was torn off the bone, and said while he didn’t have any expectations prior to undergoing an MRI on Saturday, he knew the injury was really bad.

“It’s been a roller coaster these last few days, this is the opportunity that you dream of,” Slater said.

The Giants began the year hoping Mac Williamson and Jarrett Parker would compete in Spring Training for the right to serve as San Francisco’s everyday left fielder, but Williamson suffered a quad injury in late March while Parker broke his clavicle crashing into the outfield wall at AT&T Park in mid-April.

San Francisco was unable to receive any sort of meaningful production out of the left fielders it used during the first two months of the season –which included an undistinguished crew like Drew Stubbs, Chris Marrero and Orlando Calixte– but Slater’s arrival with the Giants appeared to signal a changing of the guard.

Slater said Sunday that he thought he’d done enough to prove that he can play at this level, and Bochy confirmed that he was impressed with the way Slater swung the bat in his first sampling against top-flight pitching.

“He (Slater) made some noise, he showed that he can handle Major League pitching, I think,” Bochy said. “Small sample size obviously but he had some good at-bats, I thought he did a good job in left field and as I talked about earlier with him, he’s a smart kid that seems to figure out each level in a short time and he was doing that here.”

Slater’s injury is a crushing blow to a Giants’ team that fell 26 games back of the first place Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday evening with a 5-4 loss to the Miami Marlins. After winning six games in a row, San Francisco has now lost four of its last five and sits 21 games below .500 with one game remaining until the All-Star break begins.

Slater said Sunday that he didn’t want to put a timetable on his recovery, but that he’d really like to be back on the field by the end of the season.

If he’s not able to play, Slater didn’t rule out a potential return to the Dominican Winter League, where he played two games last offseason before suffering a hamate bone injury. Slater said the recovery process from that injury also took two and a half months, but he was able to return to the field and participate with the Giants in Spring Training without significant complications.

Slater is the latest Giants’ prospect to incur a serious injury, as third baseman Christian Arroyo was placed on the disabled list with a fractured hand. Arroyo is also out until at least September, and on Sunday, Bochy expressed disappointment that San Francisco won’t be able to look at two of its top prospects for an extended period after the All-Star break.

“It really is (unfortunate),” Bochy said. “These kids are part of our future so that’s a tough break for them and us the fact that we’re not going to get a chance to give them some playing time up here.”