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Bochy ready to test Melancon, not worried about Sandoval after injury

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SAN FRANCISCO–Giants’ skipper Bruce Bochy faces the same restrictions every other manager baseball faces on a daily basis.

Though he could probably use a team with more depth, Bochy is limited to the 25 players he has in his clubhouse for every game.

So with the game on the line on Monday evening against the Brewers, Bochy decided to test Mark Melancon.

The 32-year-old who has dealt with a pronator strain for the majority of the 2017 season pitched a scoreless seventh inning on Sunday against the Phillies, and on Monday night, he entered back-to-back ballgames for the first time since May 19 and May 20.

While Melancon has suffered through two separate disabled list stints this season and is still pitching through pain, he’s been extremely effective since being activated from the disabled list on August 12. After Matt Cain threw a scoreless seventh inning to preserve a 2-0 lead, Bochy called upon Melancon, who navigated through a 1-2-3 eighth inning to help the Giants to their first home shutout win of the season.

“We talked about it and he was ready to do it, ready to try it,” Bochy said. “We had Cain on hold, we didn’t tell him he was done when he came in after the seventh just so when Mark went out there, if he didn’t quite feel right, Matt would have gone back out. He was good so he pitched the eighth and I won’t use him tomorrow.”

The Giants want to take every precaution they can with Melancon, who signed a four-year, $62 million contract to serve as the team’s closer this offseason, so the decision to use him on consecutive days came as a surprise. Nevertheless, after set-up man Hunter Strickland gave up three runs in the eighth inning on Sunday, Bochy needed a reliever to bridge the gap between Cain and interim closer Sam Dyson. And Melancon did the job.

“But you’re right, this was his first time back-to-back and he’s got enough outings to where we were comfortable doing it and he was comfortable doing it so it really worked out well because Strickland needed a day,” Bochy said.

After Monday’s game, Bochy also addressed the health of Pablo Sandoval, who took a pitch off the forearm during his eighth inning plate appearance. With infielders Joe Panik, Brandon Belt and Miguel Gomez all on the disabled list, an injury to an infielder is the last thing Bochy needs at the moment. Fortunately for the Giants, even though Sandoval came out of the game after his hit by pitch, Bochy said the third baseman is fine and should be in the lineup on Tuesday against Milwaukee.

“He’s fine. Contusion there on the forearm. But he’s fine. You know what, he could have stayed in. But I got Orlando ready to go in and so I said, no let’s get him checked out and he says he’s fine to go tomorrow.”