Brian Wilson has been on the disabled list since the beginning of the season with a strained oblique. Unfortunately -- in three cases, fortunately in the 10-0 win -- the Giants haven't needed his services as closer just quite yet this season.
But it appears he'll be ready to roll as early as Wednesday, when the Giants will likely bring him off the disabled list, according to manager Bruce Bochy.
Bochy said on Tuesday afternoon, prior to the game against the Padres, that the Giants were leaning towards activating The Beard.
Wilson's been saying for a while that he's ready to rumble, and he looked quite sharp in a simulated game that took place. The bigger question, then, is who gets sent down to make room for the All-Star closer.
"They're always difficult," Bochy said about the choice of who to send back down. "They're never easy ones. But we have to make a spot for Willie. We knew this was coming up."
Because Wilson's the closer, it's pretty obvious that whoever gets sent down will likely be in the bullpen. That makes Dan Runzier, Guillermo Mota and Santiago Casilla the most likely choices to be sent back down.
Runzier got shellacked by the Dodgers recently -- giving up four earned runs in just a third of an inning -- and while he might not want to go back to Triple A, it wouldn't necessarily be the end of the world.
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Mota's pitched pretty darn well this season, and might have to be released, which isn't a fantastic option.
Perhaps, then, Casilla could swap spots with Wilson; Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury-News pointed out earlier Tuesday that Casilla's elbow has been "cranky" and that he's been "icing [the] elbow often for [the] better part of two weeks."
This makes the most sense, logically, for the club. They'd get to keep Mota, let Runzier continue to learn at the big-league level, and not lose any bullpen depth with the return of their closer. Plus, they'd get an extra two-week evaluation period on the rest of the bullpen to figure out who's the odd man out once everyone's healthy.
