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Colorado Rockies shortstop Jose Reyes wants out of the Mile High City.

Take it from the man himself, per Nick Groke of the Denver Post:

You come from a ballclub that was competing for a spot in the playoffs. And you come to a club in last place. You think about that. … I’m at the point in my career that I want to win. I say it over and over. I want to win. I don’t want to spend the rest of my career on a last-place team. That’s not the kind of player I feel like I am.

Let’s unpack this, piece by piece.

Reyes, a four-time All-Star and a guy who used to get MVP votes, was in Toronto, on a team aiming for October.

Then, at the trade deadline, the Blue Jays shipped him to Colorado as part of the deal that brought another All-Star shortstop, Troy Tulowitzki, north of the border.

Basically, the Jays swapped Reyes for what they perceived to be a better model.

Since Tulo arrived, along with ace southpaw David Price, Toronto has gone on a tear and is now locked in a dead heat for supremacy in the American League East. There’s a lot of baseball left, but it’s an increasingly safe bet the Jays will end their 22-year postseason drought.

Reyes could have been there. Instead, he’s toiling in Colorado, on a last-place team going nowhere. So his bitterness is understandable.

It also must grate a bit for Rockies fans to hear their new player label the franchise as a perpetual loser.

Read that quote again and notice how he said “the rest of my career,” not simply “the rest of the season.” That indicates Reyes isn’t sold on the idea of Colorado ever evolving into a winner, at least not in the two seasons—plus a team option for 2018—that remain on his current contract.

That contract—which will pay Reyes at least $48 million after this year—complicates matters.

Reyes has cleared waivers, per ESPN.com, meaning the Rockies can trade him this season, if there’s a taker.

That’s a big “if.”

Yes, Reyes’ overall numbers—a .279 batting average, 41 RBI, 19 stolen bases—are decent. And he’s picked it up after slumping initially with the Rockies, smacking a pair of home runs and driving in seven in 22 games.

But at 32 years old, Reyes is no longer an elite MLB shortstop. In 2006 and 2007, at the height of his powers, Reyes’ glove was good for 20 defensive runs saved (DRS), according to FanGraphs.

In 2014 and what we’ve seen so far of 2015, that’s plummeted to a minus-27 mark.

That’s only one measure, and all defensive stats have their limitations. But it paints a stark picture of a once-stellar defender in decline.

The long-term answer is probably to shift Reyes to second base, and there are clubs with a need there.

A deal this season seems unlikely. The New York Yankees have been linked to Reyes, but as NJ Advance Media’s Brendan Kuty reported, general manager Brian Cashman said the Yanks aren’t likely to make any waiver trades.

As CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman noted, with Didi Gregorius making strides at shortstop and the Stephen Drew-Brendan Ryan duo holding on at second base, “it’s hard to see a real match with the Yankees right now.”

It’s possible the Rockies could get creative over the winter and find a suitor, especially if Reyes heats up down the stretch.

It’s worth wondering, though, if his days of providing a spark are over.

Reyes says he wants to go to a contender and still talks like a guy who can help push a club over the top. But the numbers, particularly on the defensive side, tell a different story. Reyes, once a game-changer, may no longer be anything more than a complementary piece.

And unless the Rockies are willing to eat a significant portion of his salary or accept a relatively modest return, he could be stuck in Colorado for longer than he likes.

All statistics current as of Aug. 24 and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

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The criticism has been shot with impunity, mostly because everyone with an Internet connection has done it, and the targets have been easy to hit.

Arizona Diamondbacks chief baseball officer Tony La Russa and general manager Dave Stewart have a reputation for resisting Major League Baseball’s move into an analytics era, per USA Today‘s Jason Lisk. They are not entirely different from the previous regime of Kevin Towers and Kirk Gibson, and their controversial payroll-slashing trade of the organization’s 2014 first-round pick in June, followed by curious and baffling comments by Stewart in defense of the deal, led to a war cry from critics, per ESPN’s David Schoenfield.

Rightfully so. This is a franchise that does not look like it can afford to jettison promising pitchers for cash, and it’s moves like that that can create distrust among a fanbase.

Then again, showing immediate promise and potential does much more to retain it. The Diamondbacks are quietly growing into one of the most promising teams in baseball, building to become a potentially legitimate National League contender in 2016 with a potent, youthful offense and a pitching core with upside.

“We kind of look around the clubhouse, and the players like the players that are in here,” center fielder A.J. Pollock told Dave Lumia of Fox Sports Arizona last week. “We feel like we’re very capable of turning heads. Some people are surprised, but we’re not.”

And maybe nobody should be. The Diamondbacks have a plus-29 run differential. Based on that, the team should be around six games over .500 by way of Bill James’ Pythagorean win-loss predictor. The reason the club sits two games under .500 is because its pitching staff gives up more than four runs a game on average. 

The offense has saved the team from being an embarrassment because of its pitching. It’s scoring more than 4.5 runs per game, the fourth-highest average in the majors behind three American League East teams going into Thursday.

In that same time frame, the Diamondbacks led the NL in runs (538), BABIP (.317), baserunning (12.7) and ranked in the league’s top five in OBP (.324), slugging (.405), OPS (.729), Weighted On-Base Average (.316) and Weighted Runs Created Plus (96).

They are also the youngest lineup in the majors with an average age of just under 27 years old—they started the year as the second youngest (28.04 years), according to Stats LLC (per ArizonaSports.com). At the start of last season, the team had the sixth-oldest lineup in baseball.

“Maybe it’s because everyone is so young and so hungry and still trying to make a name for themselves. But you should see how hard this team works behind the scenes, the time spent in the weight room and the (batting) cages,” Paul Goldschmidt, the team’s MVP candidate, told Dan Bickley of AZ Central.

“And we have to be one of the most prepared teams in the league when it comes to scouting reports. It all shows up on the field.”

With guys like Goldschmidt, Pollock, Welington Castillo, David Peralta and Yasmany Tomas as mainstays in the lineup, not to mention top overall pick in last June’s draft Dansby Swanson set to join that infield in the next few years at the latest, the offense seems set.

The team’s problem is its rotation, and everyone, including manager Chip Hale, understands that.

Robbie Ray, acquired from the Detroit Tigers in the three-team deal that sent shortstop Didi Gregorius to the New York Yankees over the offseason, has been the most promising arm in Arizona this season. He is 23 and has a 3.38 ERA and 3.29 Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) in 15 starts. He has also been far better on the road and away from hitter-friendly Chase Field, putting up a 2.75 ERA in nine starts, as opposed to a 4.45 ERA in six home starts.

Patrick Corbin looks like he can be a valuable starter since returning from Tommy John surgery last month. In his nine starts, the 26-year-old has a 4.09 ERA, 3.72 FIP and is striking out 9.2 hitters per nine innings.

Other than those two, the Diamondbacks have not gotten much in the way of optimism from their other starters, including Rubby De La Rosa, Jeremy Hellickson or Archie Bradley, though Bradley is only 23 years old and has fought shoulder issues this season.

Plus, Cuban signee Yoan Lopez is on the minor league disabled list with elbow stiffness/tightness, which can be a precursor to Tommy John surgery. Lopez cost the team more than $16 million to sign because of taxes, and he was the organization’s No. 5 prospect, according to MLB.com.

This is why it was so curious, and infuriating to some, that the front office would move last year’s top draft pick, Touki Toussaint, for money when he was rated the team’s No. 3 prospect by ESPN’s Keith Law. This doesn’t seem like an organization that can get rid of promising pitching prospects as if they grow through the rock lawns of the Arizona valley.

If La Russa and Stewart take the $10 million they got for Toussaint and deploy it in a deal for a front-line free-agent starter, then fine. Because for the Diamondbacks to become true contenders in the NL West, their rotation will have to greatly improve from being one of the league’s bottom dwellers, according to FanGraphs.

“If Dave Stewart can fix the pitching,” Joel Sherman of the New York Post said on MLB Network, “this team can be something.”

For now that “if” remains prominent, but so does the fact that the Diamondbacks have a great foundation of young position players poised to give opposing pitchers fits in 2016 as the team makes its way back to relevancy.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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Marlon Byrd has value. 

It is tangible. It’s not like saying he brings leadership or veteran experience to a clubhouse. Those things can’t be measured. And who knows if they actually help? Especially when a team already possesses such qualities across its rows of lockers.

Byrd hits for power, and he currently has his health. For the San Francisco Giants, those things are entirely valuable right now. Going into the season’s final six or so weeks, Byrd’s bat plays for the defending World Series champions, a team injured in the outfield and in its lineup by the absences of Hunter Pence and Joe Panik.

“He still has some old-man strength,” Leake, a teammate of Byrd’s earlier this season with the Cincinnati Reds, told Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle. “I think he’ll help out.”

There’s no reason to doubt that. Byrd has 19 home runs this season, which is his biggest draw, since his OBP was .286, and his OPS-plus was 98 playing mostly in hitter-friendly Great American Ball Park. Sticking him in the outfield with Pence gone gives the Giant at least a power presence.

And while Byrd’s numbers at AT&T Park aren’t great—.216 average and .263 OBP—he has hit for power with four homers in 20 games. And maybe some icing on the cake is that he pounds Dodgers pitching at Dodger Stadium to the tune of .356/.387/.529 with six doubles and three homers in 93 plate appearances.

The Giants have been hit hard by injuries, as have several other contenders in the National League, and are now 2.5 games behind the Dodgers in the NL West and four behind the Chicago Cubs for the second wild-card spot. Byrd gives them coverage in the outfield with Pence and Nori Aoki both spending multiple stints on the disabled list this year. Plus, the Giants do not expect to have All-Star second baseman Panik back until next month. 

“I’m excited,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy told reporters, via the Associated Press (h/t ESPN). “Marlon is a real pro who knows how to play the game and, most importantly, gives us a much-needed bat.”

The move comes A day after their archrivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, made a similar move to bolster their ailing lineup with Chase Utley. And while the trade does not address the team’s biggest need, much like the Utley trade, Mike Leake’s return to the rotation in the coming days could do exactly that for the Giants.

And if Leake is right, his return could be more impactful than the deal for Byrd.

The Giants’ rotation has struggled in the second half outside of ace Madison Bumgarner and Leake’s one start before pulling a hamstring after his trade. Taking out the second-half innings of those two, San Francisco’s rotation has a 4.38 ERA since the All-Star break after Jake Peavy gave up four runs in six innings Thursday night in Pittsburgh.

Aside from Peavy, Matt Cain and Chris Heston have also been points of concern recently. In Cain’s four August starts, which included a solid six-inning, two-run performance in St. Louis on Wednesday, he has a 7.32 ERA and 7.02 FIP, costing the Giants about a half a win (h/t Matt Goldman of MLB Daily Dish). Heston has not been much better, showing a 4.58 ERA, 6.11 FIP and also costing the Giants in wins in his four turns.

Ryan Vogelsong has been good since returning to the rotation this month, posting a 2.40 ERA in three outings. But none of them have lasted longer than six innings, as he has not been at all efficient with his pitches. Considering the Giants have holes in other rotation spots, that lack of length could end up taxing what has been a pretty good bullpen in the second half.

“They aren’t overly confident in their starting rotation,” Fox Sports 1 MLB analyst C.J. Nitkowski said on the network Thursday. “They have the great ace in Madison Bumgarner [but] there’s a reason they went out and got Mike Leake. There’s a reason Tim Hudson went on the DL then they pushed him to the bullpen. Right now these guys are not helping. Tim Lincecum is not there. Matt Cain has been struggling.

“Overall, when you look at this starting rotation, you’re not overly inspired. You’re just hoping they can get it together.” CSN Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic reported on Leake:

Mike Leake told me he’s running at 75 percent now, doesn’t feel pain while pitching. Giants pretty confident he can return Sunday.

— Alex Pavlovic (@AlexPavlovic) August 19, 2015

That is why Leake could be a significant upgrade. In his five starts before going on the DL, four of those with the Reds, he had a 0.99 ERA and averaged over seven innings a game. If that is the Leake who comes back in the coming days, he will be a massive upgrade to a shaky rotation.

Byrd and Leake are two former Reds who were going nowhere with Cincinnati, but given the state of the Giants at this point of the season, they could both be playing significant roles in this year’s playoff races.

Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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The San Francisco Giants announced via their Twitter account on Thursday that they acquired outfielder Marlon Byrd and cash from the Cincinnati Reds for Double-A pitcher Stephen Johnson. 

For the Giants, the deal for Byrd was a necessity, as their outfield was worn dangerously thin. The team had just placed Hunter Pence on the disabled list as he deals with an oblique strain, while Nori Aoki made his return from the seven-day concussion disabled list in a corresponding roster move, bolstering the depth at Bruce Bochy’s disposal.

“I’m excited to have Marlon,” Bochy said, via Alex Pavlovic of CSN Bay Area. “I really respect how he plays the game. He’s excited about coming here. It’s fair to say we could use some help and experience, and he supplies that.”

Prior to the trade and Aoki’s return, Gregor Blanco and Justin Maxwell were the only healthy and established outfielders available with Angel Pagan also shelved on the disabled list, according to MLB.com. 

They’ve recently relied on 28-year-old outfielder Juan Perez, who made his first appearance with the Giants this season on Aug. 13.     

Now, San Francisco adds an established outfielder who holds plenty of pop in his bat, as the 37-year-old has hit 19 home runs in 96 games with the Reds this season. In return Cincinnati gets a righty reliever in Johnson who is 3-0 with 68 strikeouts in 58.0 innings pitched in Double-A this season, according to MiLB.com.

FanGraphs.com’s Kiley McDaniel took a look at what the Reds are getting:

San Francisco currently sits 2.0 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers for the National League West Division lead and 3.0 games back of the Chicago Cubs for the final wild-card spot. To make a late-season push, the Giants will need Byrd to replace some of the power lost with Pence injured.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

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The Los Angeles Dodgers are acquiring a second aging former Philadelphia Phillies superstar, and, like the first, the move has the potential to be an upgrade.

The Dodgers pulled off the biggest waiver deadline trade this year in getting second baseman Chase Utley from Philadelphia, a move made to absorb incumbent second baseman Howie Kendrick’s current hamstring injury, which has him on the disabled list.

Plenty of clubs had August interest in Utley, per Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, but a pair of “mid-level” minor league prospects got it done for the Dodgers, according to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports.

With the way Utley has hit since returning from an ankle injury, this move could be a massive boost for the Dodgers lineup, which remains inconsistent against even mediocre pitching. It proved just that in being swept by the Oakland A’s this week.

The Utley deal, while potentially impactful, does not address the Dodgers’ more serious and immediate need for a reliable bullpen arm. The team’s lack of a solid wing out of the pen was highlighted in the two-game Oakland series. These were possibly two of the Dodgers’ ugliest losses this year, considering the point in the season, the state of the National League West and the fact that L.A. held leads in both games.

ESPN.com’s Mark Saxon reported Wednesday afternoon that “the Dodgers will receive $4 million from Philadelphia to offset the $6 million remaining on Utley’s $15 million salary.” This would set Utley up to become a free agent after the season.

Acquiring Utley can certainly help L.A. Kendrick is expected to be out until early September, per Steve Dilbeck of the Los Angeles Times, and Utley has been hot since returning from the disabled list, batting .484 (15-for-31) with five doubles and a home run in eight games. Before missing 37 games with the ankle issues, Utley had hit .179/.257/.275 in 249 plate appearances. He had started the year 9-for-91.

If Utley brings his latest brand of production to the Dodgers, it will be a big help to a lineup that scored eight runs in its last three games, against starters Anthony DeSclafani, Felix Doubront and Jesse Chavez. In the way Marco Scutaro caught fire after being traded to the San Francisco Giants in 2012, Utley can be that kind of small-sample boost to the Dodgers as he plays second and probably some third and first base.

“His bat speed is very good,” Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. told 94WIP in Philadelphia on Tuesday. “You can see his legs are underneath him, and it seems pretty clear that there was something going on in his ankle that was limiting him in some way, shape or form. He looks like he’s pretty much a man on a mission.”

Amaro also noted that it was “very likely” Chase Utley would remain in Philadelphia through the end of the year, which obviously wasn’t true. The first comment wasn’t false, though: Utley is hitting the ball harder now than he has all season. Daren Willman of MLBFarm.com tweeted as much:

Utley fills a hole in the lineup, but he does not improve the Dodgers bullpen, which has nearly been the worst in the league since the All-Star break. Like Utley, the group is also producing some hitter-friendly exit velocities of late, as the bullpen went into Wednesday with a hard-hit rate of nearly 30 percent and a soft-hit rate of 17.5 percent, the fifth-worst in the league since the break, according to FanGraphs. 

This has been a problem for the Dodgers all season, as it seems like the only thing the bullpen is great at is strikeouts—its 26.4 percent strikeout rate leads the league—but it also strands only 71 percent of runners, the second-worst mark in the NL. 

In the two games in Oakland, the bullpen allowed six runs in 4.1 innings. Jim Johnson, the arm acquired from the Atlanta Braves at the non-waiver deadline to be the bridge to closer Kenley Jansen, has allowed 14 earned runs in six innings (eight appearances), making the unit significantly worse and more unreliable than it was before his arrival.

“Obviously we’re going to have to find ways to get the ball from our starters to Kenley,” manager Don Mattingly told reporters Tuesday. “We’ve got guys who can do that, and I trust that we’re going to do that.”

Trust is hardly evident, as Mattingly, just like last season, has had to stick with his starters too long into games. (Think back to the elimination game in last year’s playoffs, with Clayton Kershaw against the St. Louis Cardinals. A similar thing happened Wednesday, when Alex Wood bore too much of the burden in the decisive sixth inning.) The alternative has been to wear out the couple of arms that can get high-leverage outs until they are fatigued enough that they are no longer solutions.

“Clone Kenley Jansen,” Grantland’s Jonah Keri said this Wednesday on Baseball Tonight. “That’s the solution to their problems.”

Utley is a good gamble for the Dodgers. He is low-risk, high-reward at its finest for a team that can throw its money around as a Band-Aid. But unless he can pitch effectively in game-deciding situations (spoiler alert: he cannot), the same problem that made the Dodgers vulnerable down the stretch and into the postseason last year will again bite them in 2015.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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Unfortunately for St. Louis Cardinals right fielder Stephen Piscotty, Juan Perez’s spidey senses were tingling Wednesday afternoon.

The San Francisco Giants center fielder made a stunning catch in the bottom of the first inning, scaling the wall at Busch Stadium to rob Piscotty of a solo home run shot.

Despite Perez’s efforts, however, the Cardinals took a one-run lead two batters later when catcher Yadier Molina singled on a line drive to bring shortstop Jhonny Peralta home.

[MLB]

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San Diego Padres shortstop Alexi Amarista sparked a double play Wednesday that will make you do a double take. But be careful—you might experience some mild whiplash.

Down one run in the sixth inning at Petco Park, Atlanta Braves outfielder Adonis Garcia hit a sharp ground ball—but not sharp enough to escape the Padres shortstop.

Amarista chased the ball down and then spun around to flip it directly from his glove to second baseman Jedd Gyorko. Nick Markakis was out at second before Gyorko turned the double play to get Garcia at first.

The Padres preserved their one-run lead, eventually winning 3-2 to finish the three-game sweep.

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With two outs and Oakland Athletics third baseman Danny Valencia at the plate with a 1-2 count, Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw offered a fastball he thought would end the third inning.

But the pitch was too far outside.

Valencia got a piece of the ace’s next offering, sending Kershaw off the mound to try to field the ground ball headed toward third base—but he botched it. The ball bounced away from his glove a few times, and he couldn’t make the play at first.

Valencia got the hit, and frustration got the best of Kershaw.

The lefty slammed the ball on the ground and fired it into the dugout before returning to the mound.

He struck out the next batter, Josh Phegley, as the A’s held on to a 1-0 lead.

[MLB]

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After his Colorado Rockies were swept last week at Citi Field, Nolan Arenado explained it away by raving about the New York Mets‘ pitching.

“The Mets have four No. 1’s. We saw all four of them,” Arenado said.

No one ever says that about the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Dodgers may well have the best two starting pitchers in baseball in Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke. And they may well have the most underwhelming back end of a rotation of any playoff contender.

It’s no coincidence that since the start of July, the Dodgers have gone 12-3 when Kershaw or Greinke starts a game—and 11-16 when anyone else starts.

“It’s still hard to believe that they didn’t go out and get another big starter,” one rival scout said Monday.

But they didn’t. They’ll go into the playoffs in seven weeks with Kershaw, Greinke and whoever is left, and they’ll make the best of it. And if the standings stay as they are today, they’ll open the Division Series against a Mets team that can counter with Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard and Jonathon Niese.

Arenado was being a little generous when he called them “four No. 1’s,” since Syndergaard is still developing and Niese isn’t in that class. But Syndergaard without a doubt has No. 1 stuff, and before long the Mets could have Steven Matz in Niese’s place.

Regardless, scouts would overwhelmingly agree that the Mets’ rotation is deeper. So which group would they take in a playoff series?

“We were just talking about that the other day [at Citi Field],” one NL scout said. “If you had one four-game series, and you had to win three games, you’d take the Mets. But in the playoffs, you’d have to give the advantage to the Dodgers, because of their experience, their track record, and the fact that they’re both true No. 1’s.”

A few necessary reminders here: The Dodgers have had Kershaw and Greinke together for two Octobers already, and they didn’t win either time (losing to the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS in 2013 and to the Cardinals in the Division Series in 2014). They’re 2-2 in Greinke’s four postseason starts for them, and 0-4 when Kershaw starts against the Cardinals in October.

And for all the concern about rotation depth, the team that won the World Series in 2014 did it with just one dependable starting pitcher. Take out Madison Bumgarner, and the Giants rotation last October was 1-3 with a 5.59 ERA in 11 postseason starts.

It worked, because Bumgarner was historically good and because Bruce Bochy always finds a way to win in October. But even Bochy wouldn’t want to try it again with just one starter he could count on.

What about with two?

“I’d take two great ones,” said Jim Leyland, who managed in the postseason eight times with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Florida Marlins and Detroit Tigers. “I’d like two guys you think for sure will shut them down.”

Even without asking anyone to pitch on short rest, a team like the Dodgers could use their top two starters three times in a best-of-five Division Series, and four times in a possible seven games in the LCS and World Series. Win all of those starts and you’ve got yourselves a championship.

If you’re willing to push a starter on short rest, as the Dodgers did with Kershaw each of the past two seasons, you can minimize the back of the rotation even more.

With one pitcher on short rest, your big two could start four of the five games in the first round, or five of the seven in the LCS or World Series.

It’s hard to imagine the Mets pushing any of their aces that hard, especially in a year when Harvey and Syndergaard are both subject to innings limits that could lead to extra days off or skipped starts down the stretch (general manager Sandy Alderson has said that the innings limits won’t keep them out of the postseason).

With their depth, though, the Mets would have less need to start anyone on short rest.

The Mets have other postseason questions, starting with the biggest one of all: Can they hold off the favored Washington Nationals to win the NL East? Bullpen depth has also become a significant issue, showing up over the weekend when the Pirates swept three games at Citi Field.

The Dodgers have other questions, too. Like the Mets, they tried to strengthen the middle of their bullpen at the July 31 deadline; like the Mets, they may not have done enough. The Dodgers still face a strong challenge from the Giants in the NL West, and if they need Kershaw or Greinke to pitch a wild-card game, the rotation depth would become a bigger problem.

There’s time for that to play out, and there’s time to discuss it. The question on the table today is a much simpler one: If you had your pick for October, do you take Greinke and Kershaw, or do you prefer the Mets’ deeper rotation?

I’m taking Greinke and Kershaw.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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San Francisco Giants left fielder Norichika Aoki is battling concussion-like symptoms. 

Continue for updates.

Aoki Headed to DL

Thursday, August 13

According to USA Today‘s Jorge L. Ortiz, the Giants placed Aoki on the seven-day disabled list after he left Wednesday’s game against the Houston Astros with “lightheadedness.”

It was Aoki’s first start after being hit in the head by a 92 mph fastball from Chicago Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta on Sunday, August 9, after which he left the field under his own power. 

Wednesday night was Aoki’s first game back. Giants manager Bruce Bochy told Oliver Macklin of MLB.com that his left fielder “got lightheaded, dizzy, so we had to take him out. We’re treating him at this time for a concussion. He showed symptoms.”      

Coming over from the Kansas City Roayls in the offseason, Aoki has appeared in 80 games in 2015, already making a stint on the DL after fracturing his fibula toward the end of June, according to FoxSports.com. But the 33-year-old has been a vital bat for the Giants, batting .302 with a .368 on-base percentage, making him a prime candidate for being their leadoff man. 

Justin Maxwell replaced Aoki on Wednesday night and will be his replacement moving forward, but he does not have the same capability of finding ways on base like Aoki does. In 86 games this season, Maxwell is batting just .220 with seven home runs and 25 RBI. 

Ortiz also reported Ryan Lollis was called up from Triple-A to add depth to the left field position, but he has appeared in just two games in the majors in 2015 and is hitless in five plate appearances. 

It’s a tough time for the Giants to be losing a run producer like Aoki, who uses his patience at the plate and speed on the basepaths to manufacture runs. San Francisco sits 3.5 games behind the National League West-leading Los Angeles Dodgers and 5.0 games back of the final NL wild-card spot.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

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