Brandon Crawford and Mike Yastrzemski to IL; Cal Stevenson called up

Alex Pavlovic tweeted out and the team’s site confirms that the San Francisco Giants have placed Brandon Crawford and Mike Yastrzemski on the IL.

We saw the Yaz move coming, and while the length of that injury looks to be “indefinite,” the Giants didn’t suggest that Crawford’s fell into the same category. Per Pavlovic:

[...] Crawford was going to miss a few more days and they decided to play it safe and make sure they’re not a player short for too long.

Crawford will be IL’d as often as possible, I’d imagine. It really does seem like this is the end for the big guy and it makes sense that the only hope the team has to optimize the little bit of baseball he has left in him is to give him a rest as much as possible through a long season. On top of that, coming down from altitude and readjusting is sort of its own “injury” to deal with and so, yeah, IL whenever you can and hope for the best. No reason to believe that a bit of a break can’t help Crawford, and if they’re going to go on any big winning streak they’ll need him to be a part of it.

In a corresponding move, Cal Stevenson has been called up from Triple-A to take Yastrzemski’s spot. Recall that the Giants had traded for Stevenson from the A’s a little less than two weeks ago. He’s had 20 plate appearances with the River Cats, hitting .263/.300/.421 with one extra base hit — a home run — and 9 strikeouts against 1 walk. In seven games with the A’s Triple-A team, the line was a more robust .348/.483/.435 with a pair of doubles and 6 walks against 3 strikeouts. He hasn’t done very much in extremely limited MLB playing time but figures to be a plus defender in centerfield.

Brett Wisely, who has at times played centerfield, will now probably be doing a lot of start at center, move to second base later in the game. He’ll stay on the roster after having been the league-allotted 27th man during the weekend series in Mexico City.

Update (3:10pm): Susan Slusser has tweeted:

Crawford’s MRI showed his calf strain to be worse than thought be he says it feels better. He is very hopeful it’s just the minimum 10 days out.

Brandon Crawford tells us Mike Yastrzemski has a Grade 1 strain. That is tremendous news for the Giants.

Grade 1 can be 2-4 weeks recovery compared Grade 2, which is 4-8 weeks. Usually a muscle pop like that is Grade 2.

Great news about Yaz and interesting news about Crawford. That was a tough field to play on plus the altitude plus his age might really have done a number on the calf. Something to watch; and, hopefully, the Giants are able to weather 3-5 weeks without Yastrzemski and his recovery goes smoothly.