Giants ace Madison Bumgarner fractured his left hand after being hit by a line drive in Friday’s Spring Training game against the Royals, the team announced. He will be out six to eight weeks with a broken left pinky, Buster Olney of ESPN reports.
Kansas City second baseman Whit Merrifield hit a come-backer right towards Bumgarner, who put both his hands up in defense towards the ball. After taking the ball off his pitching hand, Bumgarner ran toward the ball and appeared to be trying to throw out Merrifield at first, but instead just picked up the ball with his glove. He was pulled from the game after that.
BREAKING: Madison Bumgarner suffered a fractured left (throwing) hand today after being hit with a line drive on this play, per @hankschulman. pic.twitter.com/K8YNPMyFKf
— Stadium (@WatchStadium) March 23, 2018
Sources: Madison Bumgarner has a broken left pinky and he's expected to miss six-to-eight weeks.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) March 23, 2018
This comes at a particularly rough time for Bumgarner and the Giants, as he only started 17 games last season after a dirt biking accident. That was first season he didn’t start 30 games since 2010.
San Francisco acquired Andrew McCutchen and Evan Longoria in trades this offseason, with hopes that their big bats will add the offense the team was lacking. They looked at Bumgarner to bounce back from his short season last year and compete for the difficult NL West division title, that keeps getting harder to achieve. They will have to officially start that quest in about 6-8 weeks.
