As the Giants finally take a deep breath and allow themselves to regroup after a devastating first half of the season, nearly every player on the team will use the All-Star break to relax and reflect.
That isn’t the case for Madison Bumgarner, though.
While many of the game’s elite players are heading to Miami for the Home Run Derby and All-Star game, Bumgarner will also be taking the field this week, but under different circumstances.
On Monday evening, the Giants’ left-handed ace will pitch in what he and his organization hope is Bumgarner’s final rehab start with A San Jose as he works his way back from a shoulder sprain suffered in a mid-April dirt biking accident.
Bumgarner’s injury and extended absence set the tone for San Francisco’s season, and heading into the All-Star break, the Giants own the second-worst record in baseball, with a 34-56 mark that’s nearly exactly the opposite of the 57-33 record they carried into the mid-summer classic last year.
At this point in the year, the Giants are nothing but the league’s greatest disappointment, with Bumgarner’s off-the-field injury hovering over the underwhelming season like a dark, foreboding storm cloud. Bumgarner’s accident was just the start of a tremendous downfall, and at every turn, the Giants have looked up only to be greeted by more rain.
Along the road to the All-Star break, Bumgarner wasn’t the only Giants’ player whose injury forced San Francisco’s train off its tracks. Closer Mark Melancon is in the midst of his second stint on the disabled list, third baseman Eduardo Nunez’s absence is closing in on a full month, left fielder Jarrett Parker broke his clavicle crashing into an outfield wall, right fielder Hunter Pence battled a hamstring injury, and even catcher Buster Posey visited the seven-day disabled list.
Giants’ prospects? Highly touted third baseman Christian Arroyo had a cup of coffee in the big leagues, but is out until at least September after fracturing his hand. Left fielder Austin Slater looked like the homegrown outfielder the Giants have been waiting for in his first 100 at-bats with the club. Then he tore the adductor muscle right off the hip bone. Maybe he’ll return before the season ends. San Francisco even brought 23-year-old Ryder Jones up to the big leagues, and he finds himself on the disabled list with a wrist contusion.
So it goes.
There’s no salvaging the 2017 Giants’ season. At this point, everyone knows that. But after a catastrophic collapse, San Francisco needs to know what it has in store for the 2018 and 2019 campaigns, and that’s why manager Bruce Bochy won’t give up on the second half of the year.
Sure, the Giants are completely out of the race, and on the verge of losing 100 games for just the second time in franchise history, but Bochy will be invested because the second half sets the stage for his team’s future, and that future begins with Bumgarner’s rehab start on Monday night.
“We’d like to get him (Bumgarner) in that 90-pitch area,” Bochy said. “Hopefully that’s at least six innings or into the sixth, but you know, he really believes that he’s ready and he’s going to be there to tighten some things up.”
If Bumgarner navigates through a healthy start, expect him to join the Giants’ rotation in San Diego this weekend in the first series after the All-Star break. Getting the ace back in the deck is the first domino the Giants want to see fall.
Should Bumgarner return to form, the Giants will need a closer to shut the door. That’s where Melancon comes in, and Bochy said Sunday he’s hopeful the Giants’ marquee offseason signee will begin throwing again after the break.
“I think so moving forward, just to get things in order here,” Bochy said, when asked about increasing Melancon’s save opportunities in the second have. “We’ve dealt with a lot here. With the closer, we’ve lost him (Melancon) twice, just get things in order in that bullpen along with some other things and sure, I think it’ll be important for us as we look into the future.”
Once the Giants have their arms back, the team should regain a bit of normalcy. The infield should too, assuming Nunez doesn’t have any setbacks in an upcoming rehab assignment.
“Nuni, he’s out there taking groundballs, hoping to get him in a couple of rehab games starting on Wednesday,” Bochy said Sunday.
As for the outfield? Bochy confirmed on Sunday that Slater will miss at least eight-to-10 weeks with his hip injury, but said the Giants are hopeful Parker will resume a rehab assignment with AAA Sacramento by the end of the All-Star break. Parker’s rehab assignment stalled this weekend after he experienced neck stiffness, but with Slater out, the Giants don’t have many places to turn in left field anymore.
“Yeah, it’s his (Parker) neck,” Bochy said. “He’s just not quite ready. The neck was really stiff, tight, so we had to pull him off. Get him a little treatment here and maybe resume his rehab toward the end of the All-Star break, Thursday, in that area.”
Bochy said Sunday that for players –especially the Giants’ young assets– who miss considerable time this season due to injury, he’d like them to consider Winter Ball as an option to make up for lost time. The Giants’ skipper said baseball is a game in which improvements lie in consistent at-bats and experience in high-pressure situations, and Bochy said Winter Ball is an ideal way to hone a player’s craft.
Slater already has an existing relationship with a Winter Ball team in the Dominican Republic, and the Giants’ rookie said Sunday he’ll likely talk with Bochy and general manager Bobby Evans about the possibility of playing this offseason. Perhaps Arroyo, Jones or any number of Giants’ prospects will join him, because at the rate this season is going, San Francisco’s players should be determined to get back on the field and discover how to win again.
If all goes according to Bochy’s plan, though, the Giants will regain the form they lost at the All-Star break last year once the break concludes this year. On the surface, San Francisco has nothing to play for, but in the second half, the Giants will be adding injured competitors back into the fold, and Bochy knows the months of July, August and September will go a long way toward determining what the future looks like in this organization.
“More than anything, just play better ball,” Bochy said. “Get some wins. This is all about winning ballgames. You may see some young guys, I can’t look at a crystal ball and tell you what’s going to happen but right now these are our guys and we’ve got to figure out a way to get better and start putting some W’s on the board.”