With Injuries Mounting, Giants Have to Work Their 'Make Do' Magic Early in 2015

It'll be a while before they know about the World Series mojo, but it's already clear that the San Francisco Giants need one special ability to carry over from 2014 to 2015.

That would be their ability to take what the injury bug is giving them and make do.

The Giants suffered their first loss of 2015 on Tuesday night, dropping a back-and-forth contest to the Arizona Diamondbacks by the final of 7-6. But that's not the bad news, really. After their win on Opening Day, the loss only dropped the Giants to 1-1 for the season. That's .500, which, in the parlance of our times, ain't bad.

The real bad news concerns what happened to first baseman Brandon Belt in the fourth inning. He came up lame while chasing after a foul pop-up and ultimately limped off the field. As Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle reported, Belt was diagnosed with a strained groin:

Alex Pavlovic of CSN Bay Area reported after the game that Belt doesn't think he's hurt "too bad," but that he's hurt at all isn't a good look. Without Belt, who owns 45 home runs and a .446 slugging percentage in 420 games, Giants skipper Bruce Bochy is perilously short on left-handed power.

Oh, and there are also all those other Giants injuries. Belt's strained groin isn't a good look in light of those, either.

Speaking of lost power, Belt is joining Hunter Pence on the pile of injured Giants. He broke his left forearm on a hit-by-pitch in early March, and his potential eight-week recovery time means he may not return until May. Without him and his 20-25-homer power, Buster Posey stands alone as the one right-handed power bat the Giants have for now.

These injuries wouldn't be so bad if things were looking good on the pitching front, but they're not.

Eric Risberg/Associated Press

As if to oblige all those who saw too much volatility when looking at the 2015 Giants rotation, veteran right-handers Jake Peavy and Matt Cain are currently sidelined with injuries. Peavy has a bad back, and Cain was diagnosed with a flexor tendon strain that's put him on the 15-day disabled list.

This, too, is not a good look. Cain is a 30-year-old who's been on the DL five times since August 2013. Peavy is a 33-year-old veteran whose known as much for his injury proneness as he is for his former Cy Young dominance, and the latest from Schulman doesn't paint a positive picture: 

So, here are the Giants. They're already turning into the walking wounded, and they still have 160 games to go on their quest to be the first repeat World Series champions since the 1998-2000 New York Yankees.

But as bad as things look, they could be worse. 

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If the Giants' early injury woes come with any silver linings, one is that they're staring at a task that they know from recent experience is not impossible. The Giants won their third World Series in five years in 2014 not because they were a juggernaut, but because they only let injuries slow them down so much.

On the pitching side, 2014 saw the Giants get only 15 starts out of Cain. Elsewhere, Michael Morse was beat up for much of the year. Angel Pagan was limited to 96 games. Hector Sanchez played in only 66 games. Belt played in 61 games. Marco Scutaro never got healthy enough to return to play second base.

By all rights, injury problems like these should have killed the Giants. They didn't because they were able to exercise their depth and resourcefulness.

Cain's health problems had a hand in the Giants trading for Peavy at the trade deadline, resulting in a 2.17 ERA in 12 starts for the Giants. And despite his 5.03 ERA as a starter, swingman Yusmeiro Petit also pitched in some solid starts here and there.

Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

The injuries to Sanchez and Scutaro, meanwhile, helped pave the way for Andrew Susac and Joe Panik to become surprise rookie producers. Morse's wounds resulted in the Giants picking Travis Ishikawa up off the scrapheap, culminating in him eventually swinging them into the World Series.

To be sure, you do get a sense of a strong undercurrent of good luck in reading a recap like that. The Giants would not have been able to make it work without a sizable helping of the stuff, and that's a tough trick to pull off twice.

But darn it if the Giants don't have any choice but to try. And to help them attract more good luck, the truth is their options could be worse.

The Giants already have their outfield set up to deal with Pence's injury. With Belt sidelined, they could give Posey more time at first base while recalling Susac to help support Sanchez. Alongside rookie right-hander Chris Heston, who had a 3.38 ERA at Triple-A last year, the Giants could once again use Petit to prop up their wounded rotation.

This is not to say the Giants will be at full strength without their key guys, mind you. They won't be. But they could be good enough. 

And that leads us to the second silver lining: With their early-season schedule, "good enough" is all the Giants need to be.

The Giants aren't exactly facing an early run through the gauntlet. ESPN.com's Buster Olney ranked their early schedule as the 13th-toughest in the National League. AJ Cassavell of Sports on Earth did him one better, ranking the Giants' early schedule as the fifth easiest in all of baseball, writing:

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The reigning champs have the second-easiest early-season schedule in the National League and the second-easiest early-season schedule among all returning playoff teams. The Giants open their campaign with 10 of 14 games against the Rockies and D-backs, who are projected bottom-dwellers in the NL West.

It gets significantly tougher for the Giants after the first two weeks, as they'll face the Dodgers (twice) and the Angels over the following two weeks. But the Giants have the benefit of playing 16 of their first 29 games at AT&T Park, where they went 45-36 last season.

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By the time the Giants get past their tough early-season schedule, they'll be into May. By then, Belt, Pence, Peavy and Cain could all be back and the Giants will be ready to tackle the rest of their slate at full strength.

Until then, the Giants will have to get by as best they can. That'll mean making good on Bochy's preseason emphasis, as relayed to Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News, on doing "the little things well," and also helping themselves to as much good luck as they can get.

Basically, they'll have to pick up where they left off last year. If any of the magic that made their 2014 run possible is still there, they should avoid falling down before their title defense really gets going.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference unless otherwise noted/linked.

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