San Francisco Giants place Joe Panik on 15-day DL, promote Kelby Tomlinson

According to Andrew Baggarly, the San Francisco Giants have placed All-Star second baseman Joe Panik on the DL with lower back inflammation.

Panik’s back began to tighten up while running the bases in Saturday’s night game against the Texas Rangers. Panik would later hit his second double of the game to knock newly acquired Cole Hamels out of the game. Bruce Bochy had this to say after Saturday’s game, via the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Unbelievable how he gutted it out. He’s a tough kid from New York. He did not want to come out. We’ll see.”

Panik has dealt with back tightness throughout the year and he has been given days off by Bochy in an attempt to loosen up his muscles.

“Unbelievable how he gutted it out. He’s a tough kid from New York. He did not want to come out. We’ll see.”

The 24-year old out of St. Johns University has arguably been the Giants’ most consistent hitter with a slash line of .307/.374/.443 to go with a team-high 56 runs scored. He is tied with teammate Buster Posey for fifth in the National League with 116 hits.

San Francisco has purchased the contract of middle infielder Kelby Tomlinson from Triple-A Sacramento to fill Panik’s spot on the roster. He began the season with Double-A Richmond and was promoted to Sacramento over a month ago. In 25 games for the Rivercats, Tomlinson hit .316 with five stolen bases and 15 RBIs.

A scouting report, per Baggarly:

The most likely player to take the place of Panik for the time being is Ehire Adrianza, who has just three hits in his 25 at-bats with the Giants this year.

Of course, this brings up more speculation and more of a necessity for infield depth. For infield trade options for San Francisco, click here.

We will have to wait and see where the front office will go from here, but bench depth is an obvious need now.