Mike Yastrzemski gave us a scare, but looks to be all right

The San Francisco Giants are counting on Mike Yastrzemski to be one of, if not their best player this season. But as the saying goes, availability is the best ability, and Yastrzemski needs to be able to actually play to provide value.

And on that note, he gave us all a bit of a scare.

In what had “It Doesn’t Get More Giant” written all over it, Yastrzemski was hit on his left hand by a pitch during Monday’s Cactus League game against the Oakland A’s. It was the Giants last game of Spring Training, and was quite possibly going to be Yastrzemski’s final at bat, with or without being hit.

But, with shades of Madison Bumgarner a few years ago, Yastrzemski left the field after a visit from trainer Dave Groeschner.

If you were following as the story unfolded on Twitter, you were scared, and perhaps a little despondent. You, trusty Giants fan, are all too familiar with the feeling of cheering for a team that has to climb an uphill battle, and then loses one of their best players before even getting started.

But then hope came in, as reports from the clubhouse sounded optimistic.

Yastrzemski was, not surprisingly, taken for X-Rays, but thankfully they came back negative. He’s listed as day to day with a contusion, and with a few of those days before the regular season starts, there’s reason to be optimistic that he’ll be in the Opening Day lineup.

But yeesh, Yaz, did you have to scare us like that?