Giants closer Mark Melancon has still yet to take the hill for the team and it remains uncertain just when he will. Most recently, he underwent a stem cell injection to his troublesome pronator, as Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area was among those to report.
For the time being, the righty reliever is going to take another two weeks of rest before hopefully attempting to resume throwing. He’ll surely require a full ramp-up from that point, though it’s tough to know how long it may take for Melancon to work back to the MLB bullpen.
Melancon, who missed a big chunk of the 2017 season, seemed destined for the Opening Day roster until a late-spring announcement that he was struggling once more with forearm and elbow issues. It emerged that he had never been able to throw pain-free despite a surgical procedure performed in early September of last year.
There’s no particular reason at this point to find further concern with Melancon’s status, though the timing does indicate that rest alone did not solve the problem and it seems there’s still plenty of uncertainty in how things will progress. Regardless, the veteran hurler’s timeline will surely depend upon when he’s finally able to throw without discomfort.
Needless to say, the Giants are hoping to get a significant contribution from the 33-year-old sooner than later. He’s in the second season of a four-year, $62MM contract that now looks to be among the least productive investments ever made in a relief pitcher. To this point, Melancon has provided the San Francisco organization with only thirty innings of 4.50 ERA pitching — though he did carry a typically solid 29:6 K/BB ratio last year.
