San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Dickerson goes to IL; Dubón rejoins team
The Giants added to their long list of injuries sustained this season, with Alex Dickerson straining his right hamstring running to first base in the 11th inning Friday night. The outfielder was placed on the injured list — the 39th time the team has used the list this season (including the COVID list eight times), and the fourth hamstring strain.
To replace Dickerson, the team recalled Mauricio Dubón, who spent one day up with the team earlier in the week and played in center. On Saturday, Dubón was in the lineup at shortstop, with Brandon Crawford getting a night out of the starting lineup with Dodgers left-hander Julio Urías pitching.
Manager Gabe Kapler said Dickerson had an MRI exam “and there was nothing on the scan that was overwhelmingly scary, so that’s the good news. But he is sore, and that’s enough for us to know it’s going to be several days before he’s feeling like he needs to feel.”
Dubón’s return provided a good opportunity to get Crawford a little rest during the team’s longest uninterrupted stretch of play, 16 games in 16 days. The Giants also have a day game Monday at Denver after a 4 p.m. Sunday game against the Dodgers, complicating things in terms of resting players. That’s one reason Buster Posey was in the lineup Saturday despite catching 11 innings Friday.
“This morning I wasn’t quite all the way awake yet but I was thinking a lot about Buster and how to help him be at his best down the stretch and balanced that,” Kapler said. “If we rested him tonight, that means he’s playing a 4 p.m. game tomorrow, then we have travel and a day game in Denver. It’s not an easy thing to do. The likelihood is that if we don’t have Buster play today’s game, we get one less game from Buster in this stretch of games.”
The Giants are losing a lefthanded bat in Dickerson and Dubón is right-handed, but Steven Duggar, a left-handed hitter who played well for San Francisco earlier this year, isn’t swinging quite as hot a bat as the Giants would like to see at Triple-A Sacramento. He was batting .279 with one homer in 15 games entering Saturday and, more to the point, he had struck out 22 times in 61 at-bats.
COVID updates: The Giants are hopeful that infielder Donovan Solano, who has spent the past 10 days in quarantine in New York while dealing with COVID-19, will be able to fly back to San Francisco on Sunday, though his sense of smell and taste have not totally returned. Solano is considered a breakthrough case because he was vaccinated. Starter Alex Wood, whose vaccination status remains unknown, remains quite ill with COVID, said Kapler, who spoke to Wood on Saturday.
“Wood is still suffering, still struggling, still having fever, chills, symptoms,” Kapler said. “Even through his fatigue and and symptoms, he’s pretty optimistic about getting through this and getting back to help us as soon as possible. I think he knows that we need him. And not just between the lines, but in the clubhouse as well.”