In the midst of an already disappointing 2026 MLB season, the Giants lost their star third baseman, Matt Chapman, to an abdominal strain injury that landed him on the 10-day injured list on July 1.San Francisco’s manager, Tony Vitello, described Chapman’s injury as mild and expects the five-time Gold Glove winner to return before the MLB All-Star break.
NBC Sports Bay Area spoke to Marc Safran, M.D., the professor of orthopedic surgery at Stanford Medicine, who explained the type of injury Chapman suffered in the sixth inning of the Giants’ 8-2 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks on June 30.
“The abdomen has several layers of muscles around it and [with Chapman’s abdominal strain], basically it’s one or more of those muscles [that] may have been injured during his throw,” Safran said.
“So, it’s generally when either the muscles fatigue or just are not strong enough for the amount of force being applied, you can actually pull the muscle. And we have different grades of those, from microscopic injury to partial tearing to a complete muscle tear.” Matt Chapman appeared...