SF Giants placing Alex Wood on injured list

There are 27 players left on the SF Giants roster, but their 26-man Opening Day roster is set. According to a tweet by Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area, Giants president of baseball operations  Farhan Zaidi revealed that left-handed pitcher Alex Wood will begin the regular season on the 10-day injured list as he recovers from a back injury. Wood underwent an ablation procedure on his back earlier this month.

Before his injury, Wood appeared in just two spring training games, allowing one earned run, three hits, and two walks in three innings of work. He has returned to the mound since his surgery, but not in an official game. On March 27th, the Giants opted to have Wood throw in a simulated game, which suggests he should not be on the injured list for an extended period of time.

The SF Giants will place Alex Wood on the injured list.

The Giants signed Wood this offseason to a one-year, $3 million contract with an additional $3 million in incentives. Last season, injuries limited him to 12.2 innings across 9 appearances with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Wood struck out 15 batters but posted a 6.39 ERA (5.01 FIP). Of course, it’s difficult to make too much out of such a small sample of play. Needless to say, Wood was a big reason the Giants rotation looked like a precarious experiment.

Without Wood on the Opening Day roster, Logan Webb will rejoin the rotation and join Kevin Gausman, Johnny Cueto, Anthony DeSclafani, and Aaron Sanchez. Webb has stood out in spring training and might force the front office to make a difficult decision when Wood is ready to rejoin the roster. Given Sanchez’s own long injury history, it’s not inconceivable that the Giants would use Wood and Sanchez together to throw 2-4 innings in the fifth starter slot.

The SF Giants will begin the regular season without Alex Wood in their starting rotation while he rehabilitates a back injury. While the team has young Logan Webb to slot in for Wood at the start of the year, his absence will already test the depth of the thinnest part of the Giants’ roster. If the rotation does hold up, it could create some interesting decisions for the front office.