The San Francisco Giants are fighting an uphill battle to return to the postseason after a two-year drought.
Not only have they fallen into fourth place in baseball’s best division, they must play 12 of their final 29 games against teams directly ahead of them in the National League West standings.
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Against this backdrop, having a roster at full strength for the season’s final month is a practical necessity if the Giants want any hope of clinching a Wild Card berth.
This week has dealt a serious blow to their ambitions.
Photo by Andy Kuno/San Francisco Giants/Getty Images
On Tuesday, the Giants placed two of their best pitchers, former Cy Young Award winner Robbie Ray and versatile right-hander Jordan Hicks, on the 15-day injured list.
Ray left his last start, a 4-3 loss to the Seattle Mariners on Sunday, with a left hamstring strain. The former Cy Young Award winer had a 4.70 ERA across 30.2 innings, with 43 strikeouts to 15 walks.
The left-hander’s potential return to form after missing almost all of last season (and most of this year) recovering from Tommy John surgery was a bright spot the team had been looking forward to during a mediocre first half of the season.
Ray, 32, is 77-73 with a 3.98 ERA in 233 career games with the Detroit Tigers (2014), Arizona Diamondbacks (2015-20), Toronto Blue Jays (2020-21), Seattle Mariners (2022-23) and Giants.
Hicks, 27, was placed on the 15-day IL with a right shoulder injury. He was 3-7 with a 3.90 ERA in his first season as a full-time member of a major league rotation.
More recently, the Giants had been using Hicks out of the bullpen as he pushed his career-high innings total — already at a career-high 108.1 and counting — even higher.
From 2018-23, Hicks made 187 appearances for the St. Louis Cardinals, delighting fans with a triple-digit fastball and recording 28 saves as the team’s occasional closer. San Francisco took a four-year, $44 million gamble on Hicks in free agency, betting on his upside as a starter.
For the better part of four months, the gamble paid off.
For now, right-handers Landen Roupp and Austin Warren will fill the vacancies on the Giants’ pitching staff. Both are relievers, however, so the Giants must now game out their September rotation without Ray.
“I think he caught it at the right time and didn’t try to push it, but hamstrings are hamstrings,” San Francisco manager Bob Melvin told reporters in Milwaukee before the Giants’ game Tuesday in Milwaukee. “You’re probably looking at a minimum of a couple of weeks.”
