Harrison Bader’s return to the San Francisco Giants hit another snag this week when a scooter crash over the weekend further injured the same foot that had already kept him out since May 29. The outfielder underwent an MRI on Tuesday, turning an already slow recovery into a more complicated medical review.
The timing mattered because Bader had been set to see a foot and ankle specialist on Monday in Indianapolis for plantar fasciitis, only to have the scooter injury change the nature of the examination. He went back to San Francisco on Monday, was checked by Giants team doctors, and then headed into Tuesday’s MRI after the crash that the club said happened Saturday night or early Sunday morning.
Vitello said he reached out to Bader to ask if he was OK, and added that the outfielder was obviously not better than he had been before the crash. He also said there was a chance the accident could delay the recovery process, though even before that setback the path back to the field already looked long and frustrating. That is the part that makes this injury hard for the Giants to absorb: Bader was not starting from zero. He was already working through plantar fasciitis, and the scooter crash added a second problem to the same foot area.
Bader’s numbers make the pause easier to measure. In his first season with San Francisco, he was batting.170 with five home runs, 14 RBI and a.557 OPS in 30 games, after signing a two-year, $20.5 million contract with San Francisco in January. The injury now leaves the Giants waiting on the MRI and whatever follows next, with the specialist visit and team evaluations expected to shape the next step in a recovery that was already behind schedule before the weekend crash.
