A day after taking Manny Machado's spot as the active leader in consecutive games played, Matt Duffy now finds himself on the disabled list after an MRI showed that the San Francisco third baseman had a strained Achilles tendon.
The Duffman, whose durability has been such a gift for Bruce Bochy, now finds himself making his first trip to the 15-day disabled list, and the Giants are out of a third baseman.
The injury came during the last game of San Francisco's three games in Tampa Bay when Duffy was rounding the basepaths.
Conor Gillaspie replaced the sophomore and took advantage, knocking in two runs with a double to break an 0 for 24 streak and give the Giants a four-run lead.
As of right now, the Giants will more than likely replace Duffy with Gillaspie and Ramiro Peña. Peña started for Duffy in last night's game against the Pirates and had one hit in three at-bats.
There have been suggestions of calling up one of the most promising prospects in San Francisco's farm system, Christian Arroyo, to replace Duffy at third.
This year in the minors, Arroyo has a .285/.330/.397 slash line for San Francisco's Double-A minor league affiliate the Richmond Flying Squirrels in the Eastern League.
Despite Arroyo's promise, this strategy appears to be the backup plan to the backup plan's backup plan.
Arroyo and Duffy have both been out of school for about the same amount of time, with Duff starting his minor league career in 2012 Arroyo starting his minor league career in 2013.
The main difference between the two is that the Giants drafted Duffy out of college, and the Giants drafted Arroyo out of high school, so Arroyo clearly isn't as developed or polished as when Duffy came into the bigs.
In addition, bringing up Arroyo at this point would start his options clock, giving the Giants fewer years to control him.
Kelby Tomlinson is close to coming back to the Giants after spraining his left thumb, so the Giants will need to be patient rather than making a radical high-risk move.
Duffy is the latest of San Francisco's durable players to find himself on the disabled list, joining Hunter Pence, the Giants' original new era Iron Man, who is out six to eight weeks due to a strained right hamstring.
The extent to how serious this injury is unknown, but considering all the injuries which have occurred this season for the Giants already, but the best course of action would be to play it safe.
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