Giants assessing their catching pool after losing Pérez

This story was excerpted from Maria Guardado’s Giants Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And _subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox._

DETROIT -- The Giants will be without their Opening Day catcher for the rest of the year, as veteran Roberto Pérez underwent season-ending surgery to repair his right rotator cuff on Wednesday in Los Angeles.

Pérez started five of the Giants’ first seven games behind the plate after making the team as a non-roster invitee, but he injured his shoulder while attempting to throw out a runner in the club’s home opener against the Royals. It’s another challenging setback for the 34-year-old Pérez, a two-time Gold Glove Award winner who has appeared in only 70 games since 2020 due to injuries.

“I think he was looking forward to having a real bounce-back season,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “He was pushing towards leading this team to a lot of wins this year. It really does get kind of snatched from you in these cases. You don’t expect that to come.”

San Francisco’s catching depth was further thinned by the loss of Austin Wynns, who was designated for assignment and elected free agency after clearing outright waivers on Friday.

Without Pérez and Wynns, the Giants will move forward with Joey Bart and Rule 5 Draft pick Blake Sabol as their catching tandem -- though they have another option looming in two-time All-Star Gary Sánchez, who joined the club on a Minor League deal last month.

Kapler said Sánchez is still knocking off some rust at Triple-A Sacramento, where he entered Saturday 4-for-24 (.167) with seven strikeouts over his first six games. Sánchez will have the ability to opt out of his deal if he’s not added to the big league roster by May 1, so the Giants have two more weeks to build him up and continue to evaluate his work in the Minors.

“I think we probably want to see a little bit more,” Kapler said. “Not that he’s doing anything wrong or that anything has made us have any less faith in his ability to impact the roster. But he probably needs a little more time.”

Bart missed seven games with a mid-back strain at the beginning of the year, but he’s 4-for-11 in three starts since returning from the injured list and will have a prime opportunity to re-establish himself as the Giants’ starting catcher in the meantime. The 26-year-old showed off his cannon of an arm by making a perfect throw to nab Dodgers outfielder James Outman on a stolen-base attempt on Wednesday and also enjoyed one of his best framing days behind the plate.

Sabol caught his first career shutout against the Dodgers on Tuesday, but he entered Saturday batting only .188 with a .538 OPS over his first 11 games. While he’s struggled to get going offensively, Kapler said the Giants are growing “more and more comfortable” with the 25-year-old rookie behind the plate, where he’s a nice left-handed complement to Bart.

“Blake is showing he’s capable of catching at the Major League level,” Kapler said. “Now you want to see a sample of productivity at the plate. You want to see more consistent work behind the plate. You’d like to see him get out in the outfield and show us that he can do that regularly. But what we’ve seen so far gives us confidence that he’s going to get better moving forward.”