Doctor details how Bryce Eldridge's left wrist injury could impact his batting originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Bryce Eldridge‘s road to recovery officially is underway after undergoing surgery Thursday on his left wrist to remove a bone spur.
His recovery is estimated to take eight weeks, and the Giants’ No. 1 prospect should be good to go come 2026 spring training.
Stanford Medicine’s Amy Ladd, M.D., spoke to NBC Sports Bay Area’s Tristi Rodriguez more in-depth about Eldridge’s injury and further broke down the different ways in which a bone spur can develop.
“So, a bone spur is an extra piece of bone, and it can either come from a bone because you were born with it –sometimes you can have little ‘pebbles’ as you might call them, which are extra bones adjacent to a normal bone you’d expect, and sometimes they exist because of traction,” Dr. Ladd said. “Traction is pulling, so if there’s a tendon or a ligament that’s been pulling on it from a chronic tendinitis, for example, or there’s been an injury where there’s kind of a pull-off of a bit of a bone and it creates in its wake a little spur, a little extra bone.”
Dr. Ladd also explained the stages Eldridge will go through after the surgery that will lead up to him eventually being cleared to return to the field.
“Probably what will happen is the bone spur will be removed, and he will be immobilized,” Dr. Ladd said. “He’ll be in some sort of a splint for a few weeks with progressive range of motion, but not strengthening, not resistance training. And that [strength training] usually happens in month two, so somewhere between four and eight weeks is strengthening and return to play.
“And that latter part is reproducing motion, throwing, catching, fielding, etc. would be in that rehab leading up to the eighth week.”
Eldridge missed the first month of the 2025 season in the minors with a left wrist injury that occurred during spring training. But he was lights out upon his return, playing 34 games at Double-A before being promoted to Triple-A, where he finished with 18 home runs in 66 games.
After much anticipation, the former No. 16 overall draft pick finally joined the big-league roster in mid-September in an effort to help San Francisco make a late postseason push. But the 6-foot-7 first baseman struggled with his bat during his short-lived majors debut campaign as he finished the season with a .107 average in just 10 games played.
Dr. Ladd also discussed the possibility of Eldridge, who bats left and throws right-handed, potentially reinjuring or reaggravating his left wrist.
“So, it may be somehow that the batting is the most aggravating,” Dr. Ladd said. “I don’t know the details, but any time you put a wrist or a finger or something in an extreme position, then you’re more likely to, what we call ‘impingement,’ to impinge, to kind of catch. So, if there were a crowding from a bone spur, that’s where you’d probably see it.
“So, batting may be more of an issue. So, he bats left-handed, which would mean he puts extreme wrist motion on the left hand. And he throws right-handed, so he catches with his left hand. So, same kind of impact in catching.”
The Giants will hold their breath during Eldridge’s recovery, and keep their fingers crossed for two months.
