The National League West leading San Francisco Giants (35-22) will be without outfielder Hunter Pence for up to eight weeks. Pence is expected to undergo surgery after a test revealed that his hamstring tendon has been completely torn from his bone, Giants manager Bruce Bochy said Friday.
The outfielders hamstring has apparently been bothering him since Wednesday, when he felt his hamstring pop while running to first base attempting to beat out a ground ball. He would eventually require assistance to help get off the field.
Pence, 33, was informed that he had a 50-50 chance of returning to the diamond if he opted to skip surgery, in favor of rehabilitation instead. But if that’s the course of action that the three-time All-Star decides to take, then there’s a real possibility that he could re-injure himself, in which case his recovery time would be even longer.
Pence has come to the decision to have his hamstring surgically repaired, leaving him with the majority of the baseball season left to play.
“We’ve got along way to go,” Pence said Friday, according to Andrew Baggarly of the Mercury News. “I’ll be back in a flash.”
The Giants other outfielder, Angel Pagan, has also been dealing with the exact same hamstring injury.
“When you don’t have two of your outfielders, it’s always challenging,” Bochy said, as reported by Baggarly. “It’s important we keep pushing here. We’ve dealt with this. We’ve overcome, even in our good years, big injuries. You have to realize these things will happen. We’ve got to hold the fort.”
For Pence, this was the second right hamstring injury in two weeks. Before this latest injury sidelined him, Pence was tied for the team lead in homers with seven, and led the NL West-leading Giants in RBI’s with 36 going into Friday night’s game against the St. Louis Cardinals.
As for Pagan, the Giants hope to have him back in seven to ten games.
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