Injury to Michael Conforto a bad break for Giants

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.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Giants will be without a key hitter for one of their most pivotal stretches of the season.

Michael Conforto landed on the 10-day injured list with a Grade 2 left hamstring strain on Friday, which is likely to sideline the 30-year-old slugger for at least a couple of weeks. Conforto has slashed .251/.343/.405 with 15 home runs over 111 games, but he was starting to heat up this month, hitting .395 (15-for-38) with a 1.083 OPS over his previous 13 games.

His absence will be a blow to the Giants, who have struggled to find consistent offense in the second half and have lost 13 of their last 18 games. That skid has caused the club’s playoff odds to drop from 76.7 percent on Aug. 8 to 47.2 percent entering Saturday, according to FanGraphs.

“Terrible timing,” Conforto said. “There’s never a good time to be hurt. Just where we’re at and obviously coming down to the end of the season with some meaningful games and tough teams coming in. I really wanted to be out there. The whole team’s been grinding. It’s frustrating to feel like I was doing everything I could to keep myself healthy and stay on the field, and still something like this comes up. It’s really frustrating.”

Conforto said he felt his hamstring grab while going after a fly ball off the bat of J.T. Realmuto in the sixth inning of Wednesday's series finale at Philadelphia. He was surprised by the severity of the injury, but manager Gabe Kapler said he was optimistic that Conforto would still have enough time to come back in September and make an impact for the Giants down the stretch.

"It was really challenging,” Kapler said. “I reached out to Michael and just said 'Hey man, I'm really sorry.’ His response is what you might expect, he's disappointed too. I think he was feeling better at the plate and contributing to wins for us and it's a challenge for all of us, there's no question about it."

With Conforto out, the Giants recalled fellow outfielder Heliot Ramos, who has batted .421 (8-for-19) with a 1.384 OPS over seven games with Triple-A Sacramento this month. Ramos has struggled to stick in the Majors since debuting last year, but the Giants have been encouraged by the development they’ve seen from the 23-year-old rookie in recent weeks.

"Interestingly, [there’s] a bit of an open door for Heliot Ramos," Kapler said. "It's kind of interesting how baseball is a nice analogy for some of the challenges and setbacks we have in life. Heliot was disappointed when we sent him down not that long ago. I had to have the conversation with him, which was like, 'Hey, you didn't really do anything wrong. Unfortunately, the roster is what it is and that's how we're going to set it up going forward.’ And just days later, he gets the news that he’s coming back to San Francisco and has a chance to walk through another open door.”

The Giants will also hope to get a boost from the return of Mike Yastrzemski, who is likely to be activated from the injured list in the coming days. Yastrzemski has been out since July 30 with a left hamstring strain, but he took live batting practice off John Brebbia at Oracle Park on Friday and looked good while running the bases.

“The last time we got him out to run bases, it was not great,” Kapler said. “He didn’t feel good. In fact, he felt some soreness. [Friday], he looked great running the bases. He also looked as physically sturdy as I’ve seen him look in a long time. I think, in part, that’s because he’s been eating good and training hard. I’m optimistic about him coming back pretty soon.”