Affeldt out for season

Baseball: San Francisco Giants left-hander Jeremy Affeldt had just come in from swimming with his kids on Thursday when he pulled out some frozen burgers to start preparing lunch.

The pitcher out of Northwest Christian HS then sustained a deep cut in his right hand while using a knife to separate the patties, an injury that has ended his season early. He said he came within a milimeter of an artery, and two friends with him were emergency medical technicians who quickly applied pressure to the wound and bandaged him up before going to the hospital.

He later went to see team doctors. Affeldt underwent surgery about eight hours after the injury to repair nerve damage in his pinkie.

“I should have used hot water,” Affeldt said in a phone interview with the Associated Press. “If I had used a butter knife, nothing would have happened. The burger was coming loose and to wiggle it loose I used the knife and it pushed through the burger and right through my hand. It was not a slice, it’s an actual stab. … If it had been a serrated knife I could have done more damage.”

At the hospital, Affeldt asked to be stitched up and told doctors he needed to pitch Friday night. But it wasn’t that simple.

“I’m very thankful it was my right hand,” Affeldt said. “I said, ‘Can I pitch the rest of the year?’ They said I could squeeze a glove fine but even if I was playing catch and the ball hits me in the palm there, in the long run it could make the hand weak. In day-to-day life I could be holding a cup and not be able to keep a hold on it.”

Affeldt went 3-2 with a 2.63 ERA and three saves in 67 outings this season.

Associated Press