Relief Pitcher Injury Bonanza-Fest!

Lots of relievers are injured.

The biggest one is Armando Benitez since he’ll be out at least 4 months and the Giants don’t have an obvious replacement (read, good replacement) for him.  What’s especially unfortunate is that the pitcher who is the best option, Matt Herges, had an abysmal 2004 season that everyone remember and while he’ll be the early favorite, he’ll be on a very short leash.  After Herges, it’s wide open with Eyre and Fassero the most likely to pick us some saves.  Munter’s up for the time being for the sole reason that he’s the Fresno reliever who’s pitching well and whose name is more welcome than a Caroline in the City rerun (Brandon Villafuerte!  Stephen Randolph!  Brandon Puffer!)

Isringhausen is a bit luckier and should be out only the minimum of 15 days with sore stomach muscle.  Tavarez is the likely recipient of 3 or 4 saves the next few weeks.

Frankie Francisco is out for the season with Tommy John surgery.  Like we see all too often, mild discomfort took only a month to become major surgery.  We need to start genetically developing people that are made like G.I. Joes since they only had two typical operations that would come up - the stomach ligament replacement and the crotch gluer-upper and there was no rehab time.

Paul Shuey is out forever due to various injuries and called it quits.