Bailey, Michael Conforto and Austin Slater all made the cross-country trip as each player nears full health.
PITTSBURGH — The personnel in the visitor’s clubhouse Tuesday afternoon at PNC Park was all the information required to understand that the Giants, slowly but surely, are getting healthier.
Among the club’s traveling party for its two-city swing into the Eastern Time Zone was catcher Patrick Bailey as well as outfielders Michael Conforto and Austin Slater, who made up half of the six position players sidelined by injuries when the team’s charter flight departed San Francisco.
Following a second meeting with a Pittsburgh-based concussion specialist, Bailey was activated prior to first pitch and is expected to return to the starting lineup Wednesday. Conforto (hamstring) and Slater (concussion) are not certain to rejoin the active roster this trip but have begun enough baseball activities that their presence was determined to be worthwhile.
Blake Sabol was optioned to Double-A Richmond to make room for Bailey on the roster.
Bailey, 24, missed 14 of the past 15 games with two stints in concussion protocol. He sustained the initial injury on a foul tip that struck him in the face mask earlier this month in Philadelphia but was forced back into concussion protocol after only one game back when he woke up the next morning feeling ill.
The club gained no more clarity on whether the issues were related, manager Bob Melvin said.
“I think that the time was probably well-served, though,” Melvin said. “For him, he’s not really sure, either. And when you’ve had these things before, you want to make sure that you’re 100% and it’s not (a concussion). At this point in time, it’s clearly not that. So he feels that much better today.”
In fact, Melvin added, “he was aiming pretty good once he got cleared to get in the game.”
Slater and Conforto both took batting practice and shagged fly balls before the game, signaling each outfielder is nearing full health.
The series opener against the Pirates on Tuesday will be the ninth game Slater has missed since crashing into the chain-link portion of the center field fence at Oracle Park last Friday. The mustachioed outfielder — debuting a new, clean trim on the facial hair — “kind of turned a corner the other day,” Melvin said, but is likely to head out on a rehab assignment before he is activated.
Whether or not Conforto requires a rehab assignment, “we’ll see,” Melvin said. “Whether it’s the end of this trip, once we get home, but we wanted him here to go through an entire workout and make sure he feels good when in fact that does happen.”
Conforto strained his left hamstring last Saturday and, if not activated by the end of the road trip, would be forced to sit out during his return to Citi Field for the second consecutive season.
When the time comes to activate either outfielder, there will be difficult decisions to be made.
A pair of prospects, Luis Matos and Heliot Ramos, have done such a good job in fill-in duty that they are angling for full-time roles. Ramos, 24, is making hard contact consistently and batting .293, adding his first home run of the season Sunday.
Matos, 22, was named the National League player of the week for his work on the past homestand. Driving in 16 runs in six games, Matos became the first member of the Giants to earn the honor since Brandon Belt on May 21, 2018.
“Those are going to be the tough calls with the fact that we do have some guys playing pretty well,” Melvin said. “Not sure what that’s going to look like. A lot of times things will take care of themselves on the way there, but it’s nice to be able to get some guys back with the amount of injuries that we’ve had.”
In the meantime, the Giants had a new face starting in right field: Ryan McKenna, a 27-year-old claimed off waivers from the Orioles when a spot on the 40-man roster opened up after transferring Jung Hoo Lee to the 60-day injured list.
In eight at-bats for the Orioles this season, McKenna had three hits — two for home runs. Over more extended playing time the past four seasons, though, he is a career .224/.302/.332 hitter in the major leagues, better known for his ability to play all three outfield positions and a little speed on the bases (eight steals on 10 attempts).
McKenna, a right-handed hitter, has fairly neutral platoon splits, though six of his eight career home runs have come against left-handed pitching.
“Anytime you can add some depth and a guy that’s a good defender in all three of those spots — we still have guys on the IL — it adds to our depth,” Melvin said Sunday.
The Giants will activate one more player from the injured list on Wednesday: Blake Snell, who is expected to return to the rotation for the second game of the series despite the fact that his partner, Haeley Mar, is due to give birth to their first child any day now.
“The plan for him is to pitch tomorrow, and that’s what he tells me,” Melvin said. “So hopefully we hold it off until then.”
Snell, 31, struck out 17 batters over nine hitless innings in two rehab starts for Single-A San Jose and Triple-A Sacramento since suffering an adductor strain during a bullpen session between starts last month. In three starts before landing on the IL, Snell was 0-3 with an 11.57 ERA.
“His mechanics just look a lot better,” Melvin said. “I know he feels a lot more confident. He’s way healthier. I think as far as mentally, that last outing was big for him. … It doesn’t feel as rushed as last time. To finish it up in a Triple-A game with some success I think adds to the confidence.”
