SF Giants need to shut down Bryce Eldridge so he avoids Brandon Belt’s fate

The SF Giants have had some pretty terrible injury luck in this dreadful season and their biggest bright spot, Bryce Eldridge, just had his own injury scare. Eldridge reportedly hit his head on a ceiling of the team’s hotel in Los Angeles. He’s been held out of the lineup the last two games and manager Tony Vitello said that he is feeling a bit “woozy.”

He has been put in concussion protocol and will miss the series finale against the Los Angeles Dodgers, but at this point the Giants might as well just shut him down for the final week of the season. They already shut down Logan Webb and Rafael Devers so there’s really no reason to have Eldridge out there.

He’s got nothing left to prove this season, but more importantly the Giants shouldn’t mess around with a head injury because they have seen this play out with Brandon Belt in the past.

Belt suffered several concussions in his career. He had a concussion in college at the University of Texas and once he reached the Giants he had several head injuries. He got hit in the face on accident by a throw ahead of a game during the 2014 season. Then he got hit in the head by a pitch in 2017 which resulted in another concussion and ended his season early.

Belt was honest about how the concussions impacted him not just physically but emotionally. Thankfully he was still able to have a long career and does not seem to be greatly impacted in his post-playing days, but head injuries are still no laughing matter.

Giants have to be very cautious with Bryce Eldridge

In this lost season, there is literally no reason for the Giants to send Eldridge out there if there are any lingering symptoms from hitting his head. It would be much smarter to just let him rest up and get fully healthy rather than running the risk of him making things worse.

Eldridge has had a great rookie campaign. He’s hit .269/.364/.461 with 17 home runs and 57 runs batted in. Sure, it would’ve been nice to see if he could reach 20 homers on the year in the last week but that really doesn’t matter at the end of the day.

The Giants are going to need a healthy and productive Eldridge for many years to come so they need to be smart and shut him down. He’s probably not the only guy they should shut down at this point but he’s arguably the most valuable.

Him hitting his head in a hotel is a pretty good metaphor for how this season has gone but the only way the Giants can make it worse is by rushing him back where there is literally no reason to.

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