The 2018 San Francisco Giants season hasn’t even started yet, and it isn’t off to a great start – in his final Spring Training start on Friday, ace Madison Bumgarner was hit by a comebacker and broke his left hand.
Fractured left hand for Bumgarner. #sfgiants
— Henry Schulman BLUE CHECK MARK (@hankschulman) March 23, 2018
ESPN’s Buster Olney reports that he’ll be out six to eight weeks.
Sources: Madison Bumgarner has a broken left pinky and he's expected to miss six-to-eight weeks.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) March 23, 2018
This injury comes on the same day that the Giants announced Jeff Samardzija would also start the season on the DL and would miss the first three to four weeks of the season thanks to a strained pec.
Jeff Samardzija will be out for three weeks to a month per Bochy.
— Kerry Crowley (@KO_Crowley) March 23, 2018
San Francisco now appears to be heading into Opening Day with a rotation led by Johnny Cueto, and also featuring Chris Stratton, Ty Blach, and uh…Derek Holland? Chris Heston? #3 prospect Tyler Beede? It’s not an ideal turn of events.
Furthermore, the Giants have a brutal start to their 2018 season – they play the Dodgers ten times before the end of April, along with the Diamondbacks six times and three games each against the Angels and Nationals. If there’s a benefit to those 22 rough games, its that 12 of them are at AT&T Park.
Bumgarner missed three months last season after a dirtbike accident, and he was noticeably worse in the second half after he came off the DL as the Giants scuffled to a 98 loss season. Now, they’ll be without Samardzija for close to the first month of the season, and they also won’t have Bumgarner to start the year. This winter, the Giants didn’t make much effort to improve their starting rotation after Johnny Cueto decided not to opt out of his contract, and that lack of attention to their starting five could end up damaging the team’s hopes of succeeding in 2018, despite the additions of Evan Longoria and Andrew McCutchen to their lineup.
[MLB.com]
