The second Ehire Adrianza started limping in Thursday's game, you knew this was coming. Dan Uggla is up. Dan Uggla is in the lineup.
Dan Uggla.
Tonight's #SFGiants lineup: Pence rf Blanco cf Posey 1b Sandoval 3b Morse lf Crawford ss Uggla 2b Sanchez c Lincecum p
— #BeatLA (@SFGiants) July 25, 2014
Uggla is not alone. He brings Tony Abreu with him, which is a little odd, considering he just opted out of his contract. He didn't find any takers apparently, and now he's back on the 40- and 25-man roster. That worked out well for him.
Adrianza and Marco Scutaro were placed on the DL, the former with a right hamstring strain and the latter with crumbling, fetid vertebrae. To make room on the 40-man roster, both Nick Noonan and Jose De Paula were designated for assignment.
Noonan was a first-round pick in 2007, just a few picks ahead of Todd Frazier and Josh Donaldson, but the 25-year-old had limited success in the majors, and he had a .584 OPS in Fresno this year. He'll almost certainly clear waivers. De Paula was kind of a strange 40-man add in the first place, coming over as a minor league free agent after an okay Double-A season in the Padres system. He had 41 strikeouts in 51⅓ innings for Fresno, with a 4.21 ERA.
You do not care about this. You care about Uggla, who is bad at baseball relative to his peers. There's a chance he explodes into a supernova of wondrous dingers, replicating what Pat Burrell did in 2010. There is also a chance that Joaquin Arias has a 1.087 OPS over his next 67 plate appearances, just like Eugenio Velez did for a stretch in 2009. There's a chance that you could meet your future spouse by showing up at the bar naked, and what a funny anecdote that would be!
The possibility that something can happen doesn't mean you should ignore the probability of it not happening. With Adrianza and Scutaro out, though, it's not like the Giants are swimming in great second base options. I'd rank them like this:
1. Joe Panik
2. Tony Abreu
3. Dan Uggla
4. Joaquin Arias
This list will be different in a week, when Kyle Crick is introduced to a new host family, and the Giants have someone who may or may not drive us insane.
Welcome, Dan Uggla. We've had our differences in the past, but we're rooting for you now. Hit some dingers. Catch the ball. Then hit more dingers. Thank you.