Hamstring injuries a plague on season
There is an underrated villain in the tale of the San Francisco Giants’ season: Hamstrings.
The Giants have had an inordinate number of hamstring injuries this year, and not just among the position players — even pitchers have landed on the injured list with hammy strains, including left-hander Scott Alexander (twice), who is currently out, along with shortstop Brandon Crawford.
That’s the biggie. Crawford is determined to come off the IL on Sunday for what might be his last game at Oracle Park. He took grounders Wednesday and, head trainer Dave Groeschner said, “He’ll be ready. I guarantee it,”
Groeschner has spent a lot of time pondering hamstrings this year. The Giants have sent players to the IL 10 times because of hamstring injuries, with Mike Yastrzemski needing three trips and Austin Slater two — that’s 89 games missed in the outfield. Michael Conforto’s recent hamstring IL made it 108. For the big-league team, the hamstring absence total is 175 games and counting.
And while you might think that an older team might get hit disproportionately, the Giants’ top young players were affected as well: Kyle Harrison’s bigleague call-up was delayed a month because of a hamstring strain, and shortstop Marco Luciano, a bright spot the final few weeks, missed a month in the second half with a similar setback.
“It’s a concern,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “It’s something we’re trying hard to understand.”
“We’ve definitely had more than I’d like,” Groeschner said. “And we’ve had more aggravations. That’s really frustrating, really challenging. We’re looking at ways to combat it.”
What is going on? Some of the
injuries can be explained easily: Alex Wood got his cleat stuck in the turf at Miami while making a play. A few of the players with hamstring strains have long injury histories, and most team doctors will tell you that past injuries are the best predictor of future health.
“Some of these come down to straight running,” Groeschner said. “These things are things we can prevent. We’ve got to do a better job. We’re looking at all the things we’re doing or not doing and making some adjustments. We’ve had a lot of meetings about it.”
Baseball lends itself to muscle strains because there’s a lot of dead time. Players can do everything possible to warm up correctly, but then often stand in the field without a play through a long half inning before needing to sprint to first on a grounder when they hit (most positionplayer hamstring injuries occur running to first).
Groeschner believes even more running is the key.
“It’s not fun or sexy, but there’s a lot of research behind it,” he said. “They need to run bases more, they need to do higher-end sprints and it’s hard with our sport. We play every day, so the challenge is to be able to do that and play the game. You look at these other sports, soccer, football, they have a lot of time off in between the games and time to train that we don’t. That’s where the offseason and spring training are so vital. We’ve been looking at all this stuff, trust me.”
Groeschner and his staff get a lot of data that can help tailor how much each player runs each day — more running at top speed in a game and maybe lighter on the workout side the next day. Little running in a game, more in workouts.
While hamstring strains are less the norm for baseball than you might imagine from the Giants’ IL, they’re common in other sports.
“If you look at the NFL right now, you’ll see how many hamstrings there are,” Groeschner said. “Ask the guys who play fantasy football. It’s not just baseball.”
Pitching plans: Harrison, who missed his start Tuesday with an ongoing illness that has bothered him for a week and a half, said he was feeling better and hopes to make a start in the this weekend’s final series. Fellow rookie starter Keaton Winn, who is recovering from COVID, also hopes to be available for that series.
Reliever Luke Jackson, who is away from the team on paternity leave, does not have a return date set as he and is wife, Corinne, await the birth of their second child.
Logan Webb also will make a start, in no small part because he’s in the running for the Cy Young Award.
“I think his more recent starts have made a pretty strong case that he should be in that conversation,” Kapler said, citing Webb’s MLB lead in innings pitched. “What he’s done is probably the most challenging part of everything that a pitcher does, which is to be durable and dependable and pitch deep into games.
“Do I think it matters to Logan? I think the answer to that question is yes. And as somebody who is here to support Logan, it matters to me. It matters to the whole team.”
Good Guy named: Before Wednesday’s game, the local chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America presented Giants starter Alex Cobb with the Bill Rigney Award for cooperation with the media.
Cobb, an All-Star, was consistently available, accountable, thoughtful, pleasant and funny, and he immediately demonstrated the latter by waving the award at past winner Yastrzemski and declaring that he is, in fact, indisputably a Good Guy.