The San Francisco Giants confirmed Sunday that Rafael Devers is headed to the 60-day injured list with a core muscle injury, ending his season with 13 games still on the schedule. He led the club in home runs (37) and RBI (98), posted an OPS of .865 and a wRC+ of 135 — good for third-best hitter in MLB from May 1 through his final game.
Devers is scheduled to see Dr. William Meyers in Philadelphia on Monday; if surgery is recommended, he would go under the knife on Tuesday. The team expects a recovery window of two to three months, with a full return targeted for Spring Training 2027.
He Was Playing Through It the Whole Time
According to the team’s statement, Devers had been managing the injury for much of the season and chose to keep playing through the pain. That context makes the production even more striking. From May 1 onward, he slashed an OPS of .953 with a wRC+ of 157 — meaning he was 57% more productive than the average MLB hitter over that stretch — ranking behind only Pete Crow-Armstrong and Yordan Álvarez, the current MVP frontrunners.
He also made franchise history along the way: Devers became just the seventh player in Giants history to record 35 home runs and 35 doubles in the same season. At the time of his placement on the IL, he also led the majors with 36 doubles on the year.
A 62-87 Team With 21 Players on the IL and $211 Million Committed
Tony Vitello’s Giants wrapped up his first full season at 62-87, out of the postseason picture and with 21 players on the injured list. Devers is the most recent — and the most expensive.
The closest parallel in the same clubhouse is Matt Chapman, who dealt with a core muscle injury in 2026 and was treated by the same Dr. Meyers. Chapman recovered, and the medical expectation is that Devers will follow a similar path.
The financial reality is hard to ignore: San Francisco still owes Devers $211 million over the next seven years. He’s in year three of the $313.5 million deal he originally signed with Boston in 2023, then was acquired by the Giants in June 2025. Through one full season in San Francisco, he was — by a wide margin — the player who best held up his end of the contract.
To fill his roster spot, the Giants called up Scott Bandura, a 25-year-old outfielder who hit .320/.407/.488 with 13 home runs across Double-A and Triple-A in 2026. It’s Bandura’s MLB debut.
What Statcast Says: Elite Contact, Season That Deserved Better
The Statcast numbers tell a clear story. Devers averaged 93 mph exit velocity in 2026 — 96th percentile in MLB, essentially pure elite. His hard-hit rate of 51.6% (94th percentile) means more than half his batted balls left the bat above 95 mph. A barrel rate of 12.5% (82nd percentile) confirms he’s not just hitting it hard — he’s hitting it right.
His xwOBA of .342 suggests the quality of his contact was actually slightly ahead of what his .258/.340/.525 slash line shows on the surface. In a cleaner season, on a winning team, these numbers would be getting a lot more attention. In San Francisco in 2026, they ended up buried under an IL notice.
The Numbers Behind the Season
- 633 plate appearances
- 37 home runs, 98 RBI
- AVG: .258 | OPS: .865
- xwOBA: .342
- Average exit velocity: 93 mph (96th percentile)
- Barrel rate: 12.5% (82nd percentile)
- Hard-hit rate: 51.6% (94th percentile)
- Average bat speed: 71.9 mph
