© Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports
With things starting to click for the San Francisco Giants, key players to the organization still sit on the disabled list as a big weekend pitching match-up awaits with the Washington Nationals.
Executive vice president of baseball operations Brian Sabean joined the Tolbert and Lund podcast Thursday to discuss when we could hope to see Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija throwing again.
“Shark is throwing pen tomorrow and then he is going to clock 10-14 days and then return to us,” Sabean said. “Cueto will also start throwing pen tomorrow, and maybe we will have him back by the end of June. Unfortunately, we have a playoff-like series this weekend with the pitching in Washington and I wish we had these two guys in top form and Bumgarner, but we will see what kind of series it will be.”
Samardzija was placed on the 10-day disabled list back on May 30th when his right shoulder tightened and swelled up. Cueto has been on the 60-day disabled list since early May when he strained his right elbow.
In addition to the two pitchers, Sabean also gave an update on Brandon Belt after his emergency appendectomy this past weekend.
“Well he is in Arizona doing baseball work and I would think if you went off a 2-plus week timetable of his surgery we stand a chance to get him back after the road trip.” Sabean said.
Prior to being injured, Belt led the team in home runs, runs-batted-in, and on-base percentage, and was second in total hits just behind Brandon Crawford. This is the second straight season where Belt suffered an unlucky injury right as he was peaking in performance.
Tom Tolbert shared his thoughts on the “unlucky” trend in his chat with Sabean.
“If I was on vacation two months from now and some guy was like ‘Hey did you hear one of the Giants players got bit by a scorpion?’ I would just assume it was Brandon Belt.” Tolbert said.
“Oh no, it can’t be Belt.” Sabean responded.
Listen to full interview below. For Sabean’s injury update, start at 9:05.