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 -- Joey Bart was expected to be a prominent part of the Giants’ catching mix this year, but he ended up spending the bulk of the season at Triple-A Sacramento following the emergence of top rookie Patrick Bailey and Rule 5 Draft pick Blake Sabol.

Bart, 26, earned a spot on the Giants’ Opening Day roster, but he appeared in only 26 games before landing on the injured list with a left groin strain on May 19. By the time he got healthy, he’d been overtaken on the depth chart by Bailey, a Gold Glove-caliber defender who now appears to be San Francisco’s new catcher of the future.

Bart spent nearly four months in the Minors before taking a red-eye flight to Chicago on Wednesday morning to fill in for Bailey, who landed on the seven-day injured list with a concussion.

With Bailey expected to miss at least a week, Bart will have another chance to step in and help contribute to the Giants’ playoff push down the stretch. He’s spent the past few days getting reacquainted with the club’s pitching staff and has started each of the last two games behind the plate, throwing out Sean Bouchard on an attempted steal of second base in Friday’s 9-8 comeback win over the Rockies at Oracle Park.

“Obviously, it’s been a hard team to crack,” Bart said Friday. “There’s a lot of good players. My situation is what it is. You can attack it or you can look back. I’ve been coming every day to attack it, and I’ve enjoyed it. I really have. It’s baseball. Coming out, having fun, busting it every day and just being there for my guys -- that’s where my focus has been. You always have to be moving in the right direction and good things will happen.”

The No. 2 overall pick of the 2018 Draft, Bart has struggled to establish himself in the Majors over the last four years, but he’s shown improvement on the defensive end and ranked near the top of the catcher framing leaderboard before being sent down to Triple-A Sacramento. His name popped up in trade rumors leading up to the Aug. 1 Trade Deadline, but he said he didn’t pay much attention to the speculation.

“There was no stress,” Bart said. “I’m about my process. I can’t really get caught up in everything else. If you get caught up in everything else, it’s not good on you mentally, it’s not good on you physically. For me, it was, ‘I’m where I’m at. I’m playing as hard as I can. If they trade me, they trade me. If they don’t, they don’t. It’s totally out of my hands.’”

Despite the setbacks, Bart has stayed upbeat and focused on trying to improve all aspects of his game. He batted .247/.357/.399 with six home runs over 57 games with Triple-A Sacramento, but manager Gabe Kapler said Bart has shown the most growth in the way he prepares for games.

“This is where you throw a lot of praise at a guy who has basically improved his process every single year," Kapler said. "He’s better at working with pitchers, he’s better at controlling his emotions. He’s a bit better at controlling the pace of the game. He’s slowed things down considerably.”