Giants first baseman Wilmer Flores exited before the second inning of today’s game against the Padres after falling into the opposing dugout while attempting to catch a foul ball. He initially stayed in the game but was replaced by a pinch hitter before his first plate appearance. During the game, the team told reporters (including Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area) that Flores had suffered a right shoulder contusion. Afterward, Pavlovic added that the first baseman also had a cut on his finger and the Giants will reevaluate his condition tomorrow. Flores confirmed to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle that he had not hit his head.
Flores, 32, is coming off a career year for the Giants, in which he hit 22 doubles and 23 home runs with an .863 OPS over 126 games. His overall defensive metrics were not particularly impressive, but as usual, he did his best work at first base, producing 6 DRS and 1 OAA. He made just two errors in 61 games.
In additional Giants news, starting pitcher Daulton Jefferies also left the game early on Sunday, after giving up nine runs (five earned) in just two innings of work. According to Slusser, the righty felt some discomfort in his left hip. Like Flores, he will be re-evaluated tomorrow.
Jefferies, 28, had his contract officially selected today, ahead of his first MLB start in nearly two years. He underwent surgery for both thoracic outlet syndrome and a torn UCL in 2022, so he and the Giants will hope his latest injury is nothing more serious than mild discomfort.
In other news from around the NL West…
- Diamondbacks center fielder Alek Thomas left Sunday’s game against the Rockies in the fourth inning with what the team later announced as “left hamstring tightness.” Speaking after the game, manager Torey Lovullo told reporters that he decided to take Thomas out of the game, while the center fielder wanted to stay on the field (per Arizona Sports). Hopefully for the D-backs, that is a sign that this was merely a precautionary measure. Lovullo said the team will continue evaluating the 23-year-old over the rest of the night.
- Earlier in the day, Lovullo provided an update on another one of his outfielders. Randal Grichuk, 32, is currently on a rehab stint with the Triple-A Reno Aces, and the skipper told reporters (including Alex Weiner of Arizona Sports) that he expects him to return soon after his minimum 10 days on the IL are up. Lovullo said Grichuk is already prepared to face major league pitching, but he needed a little more time to prep in the outfield after missing all of spring training recovering from ankle surgery.
- Walker Buehler made his first rehab start today, pitching into the fourth inning for Triple-A Oklahoma City. His fastball velocity sat around 94 mph (h/t to Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic), not quite as high as it was in 2021 and ’22, but promising for an early rehab appearance. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters (including Jack Harris of The Los Angeles Times) that Buehler would need to make around four rehab starts, with Juan Toribio of MLB.com noting that Buehler likely needs to build up to throwing 90 pitches; his goal today was 40-45.
Sounds like the Giants might want to place Jefferies on the 60-day IL after that abomination today. Whe you get your a** kicked that severely, there has to be structural damage.
He’s going to be good for Sacramento. Definitely a minor league type pitcher
Once I seen he was throwing low 90s with trash ️ off speed pitches I knew he wasn’t going to make it past 3inn. Ross Stripling pt2 at best. Teng looked like cheeks too. Roupp did have the best stuff out of the 3. Looks like Carson W will be called up pretty soon. Wouldn’t count on Winn or Black right now. Carson is the next Johan Santana for real
Winn is actually expected to start tomorrow and teng turned out to be not bad after the first inning which is to be expected for a debut, not everyone is going to blow the doors off immediately. Jefferies though may be a failed experiment but he was probably only going to get this start anyways since by the time the rotation gets to his spot Snell should be ready to step into the rotation.
The really shameful thing was the Padres dugout letting Flores drop to the floor without even one of the Padres players trying to soften his fall.
If you had to twist and look back so many times in two innings as the ball zings over your head , you’d have hip discomfort no doubt.
classless act by the Padres by not even helping Flores break his fall and instead ran the other way and just stood there and stared at him as he lay on the ground, no surprises there…
That’s not classless at all. He’s a grown man and can take care of himself. Sports is not supposed to be a love story. I like my team and give zero f’s about yours
it’s called being human, something you know nothing about…
You can’t possibly be serious? There’s a difference between sports and holding the door open for an old lady.
Ranger – it is classless. You know it and we all know it. Might want to rethink your tough guy persona.
Ranger Danger19 — Like your name, my guess is you’re 19 years old and haven’t matured into a fully-grown human being. That HAS to be the reason you’d say something so vapid.
Terrible take! Rethink that one champ
This is the textbook definition is fake outrage
The padres were ducking for cover to avoid getting hit by the ball and give him room to catch it. If someone tried to stop him from going over they would have impeded his ability to catch the ball.
By the time the ball hit is glove he was halfway over the fence. Was a really great attempt by him unfortunately it also caused him to slide over the fence into the dugout. Nothing wrong with what the padres did.
Padres trainers and staff were there assisting him once he fell over.
1. That’s actually standard in today’s world. It’s unfortunate but standard when people’s first thought of when stuff goes wrong helping is legal action.
Suppose he tore something being caught. Do the giants then file a grievance against padres and mlb punishes padres for doing right thing. What if the padres player got hurt does mlb punish the giants over a grievance?
2.. you want them to touch and move him? That’s not medically sound at all. They did the legally correct thing waiting for padres and giants medical team to come tend to him. You may not like it but in today’s world that’s how people respond to these things. Yes even mlb players.
Giants love signing other teams failed 1st round picks lol. Jeffries looked absolutely terrible today. His 91-93 FB and baby slide piece won’t cut it. If the As don’t want any part of you then odds are you will be trash. Tyler Beede has better stuff.
Luckily just a bridge to Snell coming back
Hope Thomas is back within the week. McCarthy, and soon to be, Grichuk can cover for him, but it would be optimal for Thomas to maintain consistent ABs coming out of Spring Training.
Definitely would prefer that he is on the field to iron things out; hitting into 3 GIDP this early in the season is rough
Hopefully the Thomas incident was just a one-off, but if he misses time the team does have adequate enough choices depending on the severity.
If he needs time off, but not long enough to warrant placement on the 10-day IL? They can use McCarthy or Peterson in the interim (or possibly Pederson, but I doubt that Joc would get too many innings in the field)
If he needs placement on the 10-day IL? They could use the prior option(s) until Grichuk comes off of the IL, and fill the roster spot by calling up a player in a position of short-term need from 40-man options (possibly calling up Smith or Barrosa, but it wouldn’t necessarily need to be an OF; I’m sure they prefer that Jorge gets everyday reps at AAA, though)
If it’s worst case scenario and he needs to be put on 60-day IL? It would be pretty much the same as the 10-day options, but there would be no need to call up a 1:1 replacement for Alek’s skills for an extended period of time. Carroll would likely just assume the role of the everyday CF, so the team could elect to add a promising bat to extend the bench or an extra arm to keep the bullpen with a fresh stock (or use the 40-man spot for a savvy waiver claim, although it might be a bit too early for that to be a real possibility)
All of these are obviously hypotheticals, but I’ve been disappointed by too many injuries lol; I find it’s best to have a rough expectation of the worst that could possibly happen (like the season Goldy missed extended time when his hand was broken by a HBP; that was rough).
Jeffries didn’t pitch as poorly as it would appear from looking at the score. The first inning included an error and an infield hit, plus he was getting squeezed by the umpire. There were a few cases where he made good corner pitches that were mis-called as balls, which ended up getting him behind in the count and having to make fat pitches.
Baseball is a compounding sport. Sometimes a couple of small misfortunes can be the difference between a quality start and a disaster.
I will admit that that ump was squeezing bad. The padres ended up taking king out after 4 because he walked 7 over the four frames with a 12 run lead. There were a ton of pitches in the black that were being called balls for both sides
Shouldn’t have dumped Bart for Jeffries, HUGE mistake
They didn’t. They dfa’d Bart to make room for someone to fill in until Snell is able to join the rotation, Jefferies was just the first guy up
Right. The 40 man is kind of a game of musical chairs. Bart was the least useful spot on it. Also, Zaidi is known for shuffling the back end of the roster. He needs the space to be able to do that.
They could’ve easily DFA’d Wisely..no team would’ve claimed him, he’d pass waivers easily compared to Bart..Giants had depth for his position w/Schmitt and Lopez too
It’s still a possibility that Bart passes through, unclaimed. Of course, if he does, that tells you quite a bit about his present value.
he has marginal value. I won’t be surprised if someone claims him but also won’t be surprised if he doesnt. I thin kit all depends on if a FO thinks that bart is going to be better than whoever they have as a backup catcher right now – and if that guy they have can be optioned
Yep. Barts the third catcher at the Giants. Catcher 3 needs to be in Triple A. Otherwise you are rolling into games with only 12 pitchers or a short bench. That’s just the reality of a roster. Maybe teams have a backup catcher spot for him, maybe they don’t. We will know soon enough.
Bart became the #1 C and cleanup hitter for the Pirates, while Bailey proved that he can’t hit. What a year
The tears about Bart being DFA’d for Jefferies is so Giants fan. Wisely has minor league options and can be stashed. Bart doesn’t and can’t be. End of story. Stop crying. Get over it.
dubtastic, You don’t know whether Wisely would go unclaimed or not. His ML stats are a small sample. He had an .845 OPS in the MiLs. He’s only 25, and it’s reasonable that more than one team see him as a better option than the last guy on their 40-man roster.
At least Buehler isn’t taking any more days off.