Last offseason, the Giants spent $62 million to make Mark Melancon their closer of the future. Unfortunately, his first year in San Francisco could’ve hardly gone worse. Melancon blew five of his 16 save opportunities while dealing with forearm issues, which eventually led to season ending surgery.
The 2018 season was supposed to be a fresh start for the 33-year old, but Melancon’s forearm issues have lingered through spring training, leading to an announcement from the club that he’d be forced to start the season on the 10-day disabled list.
Manager Bruce Bochy joined Murph & Mac on Thursday from Los Angeles, and went into more detail on Melancon’s issues, while also giving a prediction as to when we could see the closer return to the mound.
“It’s not good news for us, but we just have to be a little cautious here, he just was not coming around,” Bochy said. “He played catch yesterday, we were gonna make the call then but then we decided you know what he hasn’t thrown in five days, if we put him out there and he hurts himself again now we’re talking about a month or so. We think it’s going to be retroactive, so I think we can go back three days so you know it could be a short one. I’m hoping it is, but anyway we have to adjust with this bullpen.
“I’m saying maybe 10 days, in that area,” Bochy said when asked when he thinks Melancon will be ready. “That’s what I’m hoping for. You don’t know until he gets on the mound and lets us know how he feels. But it’s already been five days, so I’m thinking within two weeks this thing would be cleared up with the treatment and stuff that he’s going through. We’ll get through this series and then next one and maybe the next Dodgers series he’ll become available.”
Listen to the full interview below. To hear Bochy on Melancon, skip to 3:30.