SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — With a week until Opening Day and lingering discomfort in his knee, San Francisco Giants first baseman Brandon Belt at last has a “very tentative” plan to appear in his first spring training game.
If all goes as planned, Belt would make his Cactus League debut Monday against the A’s, manager Gabe Kapler said Thursday morning, a scenario that would give their 33-year-old first baseman, at most, two exhibition games before the start of the regular season.
“He’s been getting tons of reps, so he’s seen a lot of live pitching already,” said Kapler, who pointed to Belt’s experience last season, when he was also limited for much of the spring. “We saw last year that we don’t need a long ramp up of in-game spring training reps with somebody in the other uniform on the other side to get Brandon Belt ready to play baseball.”
Belt, 33, only played four spring training games last year, before going on to to post career highs in home runs (29) while batting .274/.378/.597 — an OPS more than 100 points better than any previous full season — but was limited to only 97 games by various ailments.
Belt arrived at spring training this year dealing with discomfort in his right knee — the official diagnosis is inflammation — that has prevented him from getting in to a Cactus League game. But Belt has been a regular participant in drills on the backfield that include taking ground balls at first base and facing live pitching in batting practice sessions. One recent live BP session that was scheduled for Monday was canned because Belt was under the weather.
“In a perfect world, would he have felt perfect when he got to camp and gone through a normal spring training progression? Sure,” Kapler said. “But that’s not where we are. We saw last year that he can have a great season – that doesn’t mean there won’t be injury challenges that come up – independent of getting the perfect amount of reps in spring training. … Belt has always dealt with some minor knee issues, so this is not a new thing for us. It’s a thing that our training staff and medical staff is very familiar with.”
Whether Belt sees the field before the end of spring training is still to be determined.
Tommy La Stella hadn’t appeared in a spring game until this week and slotted in at designated hitter in his first contest, then took a game off and made his debut at second base Thursday against the Rockies.
If Belt debuts Monday, the Giants’ only remaining spring training game comes the following day, meaning Belt would either have to play games on back-to-back days or depart for San Francisco with only one game under his belt.
The Giants face the A’s on Monday and Tuesday in a rescheduled version of the Bay Bridge exhibitions that were originally going to take place at Oracle Park and the Oakland Coliseum. Instead, the teams will split the final two games of their Cactus League schedules between their respective spring training homes.
The Giants play their final game of the spring Tuesday and will depart for San Francisco the following day, with a workout at Oracle Park anticipated Thursday before they host the Miami Marlins on Friday afternoon for Opening Day.
