Three of the top ten hit the injured list in one week

Housekeeping first, and it is the same housekeeping as last week, which is the part that stings. The Tuesday 5 AM run died again, silently again, and this edition was rebuilt by hand in the evening. Last week's fix repaired the wrong thing: the report's instructions pointed at a folder that no longer existed, and that was corrected, but the scheduler that launches the report was ALSO pointed at that folder, and a job launched into a directory that is not there never starts at all. That is now fixed at the scheduler, and it was tested tonight. The data window is unaffected, August 25 through 31. On to the week, which the injured list ran.

Three of the top ten went onto injured lists in one week, and two major league seasons ended. Luis Hernandez, Gavin Kilen and Ramon Marquez are all on affiliate seven-day lists per the league's roster entries, none with an injury named; Carson Whisenhunt sprained his left elbow, went on the fifteen-day list on August 25 and the sixty-day list on August 26, and Daniel Susac's fractured kneecap finally got its sixty-day transfer. The traffic to the majors ran the other way at the same time: Yunior Marte had his contract selected on August 29 and started that night, Anthony Molina made his first big league start on August 31, and Matt Wilkinson threw six innings of two-run ball and then got optioned and recalled on the same day. The board shrinks from 53 to 51 on the two departures.

The good news came in bunches, literally. Cam Maldonado hit three home runs in one game on August 27 and finished seven for fourteen, which moves him up five spots to 12 and makes him the one merit move on the board. Jacob Bresnahan struck out ten in his Eugene farewell and got promoted to Richmond. Bryce Eldridge came back from the bereavement list and hit .429 with a four-hit game. Kaeden Kent returned after fifty-one days and hit two home runs in a game; Dakota Jordan returned after thirty-four and homered in his first. And Josuar Gonzalez had his first cool week since the promotion, five for twenty-one, and still stole five bases and walked four times, because the number one prospect in this system cannot have an ordinary week even when he tries. Onward.

He was activated from the bereavement list on August 27, which is why the week is five games rather than seven, and he came back swinging: nine hits in twenty-one at bats, two doubles, a home run, and a four-for-five in the second game of the August 29 doubleheader. The season line has crossed .800 OPS for the first time, .263/.356/.448 with fifteen home runs at twenty-one, and this report will keep saying what it said in July: a rookie season that looks like this at ninety-three games is not a question mark. It is an answer, and the club has a month of it left to enjoy.

Three hits in sixteen at bats and four walks against two strikeouts, which is a completely different shape from last week's eleven strikeouts in twenty and, in this report's view, the healthier one. The playing time has thinned slightly with the September roster starting to fill, sixteen at bats in seven games. The season stands at .236/.326/.382 across 113 games, which is the number the front office will be looking at in November, and it has not moved in a month.

Three singles in fourteen at bats, two walks, six strikeouts. The major league line now covers 107 at bats with twenty-six hits, all but three of them singles, and a .271 slugging percentage. He remains the everyday catcher because the alternatives are on injured lists, and with Jesus Rodriguez's rehab assignment producing zero games this week and Daniel Susac transferred to the sixty-day list, that is not changing before October.

On the major league ten-day injured list, per the club's roster entry, with no games this window and no injury this report can name from a primary source, so it names none. His line freezes at .244/.253/.419 with four home runs and one walk in eighty-six at bats, the one walk being the number that will follow him into the winter.

Zero games for the second straight week, still listed on a rehab assignment at Sacramento and still on the ten-day injured list. The twenty-day rehab clock for a position player started August 13 and runs out on September 2, which is tomorrow. Nothing has been announced. Whatever the Giants do next, activate him, shut the rehab down, or explain, it has to happen by the time you read the next one of these, and this report will say which.

Transferred to the sixty-day injured list, which is the announcement this report said three weeks ago would be the only way the fractured kneecap's timeline would ever be stated, and now it has been. Season over. The fifty-three-game line, .243/.289/.375, was a strange unfinished thing and stays that way until spring.

The rehab assignment that began August 23 produced one game and then nothing: zero appearances this window, still on the assignment, still on the ten-day list. Last week this report called his return the thing that would change the September catching picture. A catcher whose throwing elbow caught one rehab game and then sat a week is a different story, and until somebody says otherwise the honest reading is that the elbow did not like it.

Six earned runs in five innings on August 28, one week after the best start of his season. The walk was not the problem this time, one in five innings; the seven hits were. His major league ERA has now been under 3.00 and over 4.50 in the same month, and thirteen appearances is enough to say the swings are the profile rather than the noise around it. The rotation audition is still open because Whisenhunt's elbow opened it wider. He has September to close it.

Placed on the fifteen-day injured list on August 25 with a left elbow sprain, per the club's transaction log, and transferred to the sixty-day list the next day. Season over. The eight-start major league line ends at 6.49, and last week's two-and-two-thirds-inning start that ended early for a reason nobody announced now has its reason. A sprained elbow on a changeup left hander is the offseason's first real question.

Three more appearances, four scoreless innings, one hit. Since the bad night in his first week up he has thrown eight and a third innings and allowed one earned run, and the season ERA that read 6.43 two weeks ago now reads 3.75. This is what a September bullpen job looks like once it has been won.

His first real major league start, six innings, three hits, two earned, on August 29, and then the paperwork week of his life: optioned to Sacramento on August 30 and recalled the same day, which the transaction log records as two moves and a reader should record as a roster spot being juggled around him. Twenty-six major league batters into his career, two walks. The strike-throwing traveled, and so far so has the rest.

Three hits in eleven at bats across six games, which is the bench role in one line: a start here, a pinch-hit there, a late defensive inning. Twenty major league at bats on the season still prove nothing, and the Triple-A line, .293 with fifty-two walks, still says the same thing it has said every week. He stays up through September because the alternative is a fourteenth pitcher.

Contract selected August 29, started that night, four and two thirds innings of one-run ball, and his Last 7 row is his entire major league career, which is the small-sample label this report attaches by rule. Two weeks ago he was drifting toward the interesting pile on back-to-back Richmond quality starts. He is now the second Richmond arm in a month to skip Sacramento entirely on the way to a big league mound, which says something about Sacramento's rotation and something about him.

Two outings, nine and a third innings, three earned, seven strikeouts against one walk, including his first major league start on August 31: five innings, six hits, three runs, no walks, six strikeouts. The Mahle trade return has quietly become a fourteen-inning major league sample with a 3.77 ERA and two walks, and he moves from the numbered board to MLB Rookies because his most recent games are in the majors and this report expects them to stay there.

Third week on the sixty-day injured list with the right elbow strain, season over since August 13. He now has company: Whisenhunt joined him on the sixty-day list this week with an elbow of his own, which means the club's third and fourth starters at the deadline both finished the season on the shelf.

His first cool week since the promotion, five for twenty-one, and the shape of it is the part worth reading: four walks, a triple, and five stolen bases in five games, so a .238 week still produced a .360 on-base percentage and five extra bases on the paths. The Low-A line settles at .352/.454/.565 through twenty-six games. San Jose's season ends September 6, so there are about five games left for the number one prospect in this system to play as an eighteen-year-old, and then the winter, and then a level this board will be arguing about by March.

Five for twenty-five with zero walks and seven strikeouts, his worst week as a Giant by some distance and the first time since the promotion that the on-base percentage and the batting average have been the same number. The season line is still .305/.365/.487 at High-A as a nineteen-year-old and one bad week does not move him off the second spot. It does end the run of this report finding a new superlative for him every Tuesday, and that is fine. He was due one.

Last week's unannounced absence has an announcement: he is on San Jose's seven-day injured list, per the club's roster entry, with no injury named that this report can source. Zero games this window, none since August 20. With San Jose's season ending September 6 the Low-A sample almost certainly closes at twenty games and ninety-one at bats, .231/.276/.319 with twenty-nine strikeouts, at seventeen. That is a learning line and it was always going to be. The ACL line above it is the one that earned the rank, and nothing about this week touches it.

Still no professional appearance for the fourth overall pick, and with the affiliate seasons ending September 6 and September 13 the window for one has all but closed. Instructional league innings nobody box-scores are the likeliest version of his 2026. Peyton Bonds remains the only 2026 draftee to have played.

Promoted to Richmond this week, and both halves of the week are shown because both happened. The Eugene farewell on August 25 was six innings and ten strikeouts against one walk, with four runs that came on four hits. The Richmond debut on August 30 was eight strikeouts and five walks in five innings, which is a twenty-one-year-old meeting Double-A hitters who lay off the pitch High-A hitters chased. He finishes High-A at a 2.92 ERA across twenty starts with 118 strikeouts and thirty-three fewer hits than innings. The winter is going to be about the walks. It was always going to be about the walks.

Five for twenty-four with a home run, the quiet week that always follows the loud two, and this report is not going to relitigate an outfielder who hit six home runs in the twelve days before it. The Sacramento line settles at .283/.366/.484 with seven home runs in forty games, the season total across two levels is twenty-six, and the forty-man decision in November was made in August. What is left to learn is whether the club calls him up when rosters expand, and this week's roster moves, three pitchers and a catcher, say not yet.

On Richmond's seven-day injured list, per the roster entry, with no injury this report can source and zero games this window; his last was August 22. The Double-A line pauses at .308/.356/.467 across thirty-one games, which is the same line that made the level jump look like no jump at all. Richmond's season runs to September 13, so there is time for a return that would be worth having, and no information about whether one is coming.

On Eugene's seven-day injured list, per the roster entry, after a skipped turn this report would otherwise have flagged as unannounced. Nothing since his August 19 start, no injury named at the source. Six starts as a Giant, thirty innings, eleven hits, a 0.67 WHIP, and now a season that probably ends on September 6 with the Eugene schedule. For a twenty-year-old who has thrown sixty-nine innings across two organizations, a shutdown in the last week of August is not a scandal. It is what an organization does with an arm it plans to keep.

Back. Thirty-four days after his last game, with no transaction ever posted in either direction, he returned to Richmond's lineup on August 29 and hit a home run in his first game, then walked twice in his second. Two games and seven at bats is not a sample, and this report will not pretend otherwise; it is a heartbeat, and the entry two weeks ago said patience had a floor. He moves up one on Henry Lalane's second straight blowup, not on the two games, and the Double-A line resumes at .298/.377/.468.

Two innings, six hits, five earned runs on August 26, one week after four runs in four innings. Last week this report gave him a mulligan on command and called it August's. He used September's early. Five starts as a Giant now read 4.57 across twenty-one and two thirds innings with sixteen strikeouts, which is a different pitcher from the one who struck out ninety-eight in seventy-eight innings for New York's affiliates. Down one, to 10, and the case for holding him in the top ten at all is the seventy-eight innings, not the twenty-one.

Cam Maldonado hit three home runs in one game on August 27, six runs batted in, and finished the week seven for fourteen with a triple thrown in, which pushed his Eugene line to .333/.413/.762 with seven home runs in eighteen games since the promotion. He moves up five spots to 12 on merit, and that is the one merit move on the board this week: the two departures, Anthony Molina (25) and Yunior Marte (32) both to the majors, shrink the board from 53 to 51, everyone behind them slides, and the desk did not stack more judgment moves on top of that shift. The other name earning a genuine look is Keyner Martinez, whose third straight strong San Jose start, five and two thirds innings of two-hit ball with seven strikeouts, has taken his season ERA from 5.42 to 4.87 in three weeks; the strikeout total is 129 in 88 innings and it is starting to look like a number rather than a tease. Luis De La Torre goes the other way, five more walks in two and a third innings for eighty-one on the season, and with Eugene's schedule ending September 6 the question of whether he was ever going to find the zone this year has answered itself.

Kaeden Kent is the resolution this section has waited seven weeks for: fifty-one days after his last game, he returned to Eugene's lineup on August 26 and by the next night had a four-hit, two-homer game, finishing the week seven for twenty-five with two steals. Acquired hurt, still hurt for a month and a half, and now the .300 hitter with twenty-two steals the trade was for, with about a week of High-A schedule left to prove the ankle. Robert Hipwell keeps doing the thing this section flagged two weeks ago, a .200 hitter who finds the barrel in bunches: three for three with two home runs and six runs batted in on August 29, and now eight home runs against a .200 average, which is the strangest line in the system and this report has stopped apologizing for finding it interesting. Hunter Dryden has quietly put four good starts in a row together, six innings of two-hit ball this week, and his season ERA has come down from 4.75 to 4.37 in a month. The two absences that remain unexplained are Jakob Christian, forty-one days now, and Tyler Switalski, who has not appeared in two windows with no roster entry saying why; both are flagged, not diagnosed, and both are running out of schedule to be diagnosed in.

The worst injury week of the season by count: two seasons ended on the sixty-day list, Whisenhunt with an elbow sprain and Susac with the kneecap, and three of the top ten went onto affiliate seven-day lists at once, Hernandez, Kilen and Marquez, each per the roster entry and none with an injury named at the source. Against that, two long absences resolved the good way: Jordan and Kent both came back and both homered in their first week. And Mayer is the clock, again, and it runs out tomorrow.

Eugene and San Jose play their last games on September 6, Richmond on September 13, Sacramento on September 20, so this is the edition where the season starts closing its books. What it will close on: the two best hitters in the system are teenagers who each had their first quiet week and are still hitting .352 and .305; the interesting arms are twenty-two and younger and three of them are now in the majors; and the injured list took a bigger bite out of the top ten this week than any week all year. Next Tuesday's edition will be the first with final lines in it. Back next week, and the report would like very much to be on time.

Stats sourced from the MLB Stats API for August 25 to August 31, 2026, fetched the evening of September 1 after the 5 AM run failed to start; the delay affects publication time only, not the data window, which abuts last week's edition exactly. Injured-list statuses are read from the league's per-player roster entries and the club's transaction log; where the source names no injury, this report names none. Rate stats in the Last 7 rows are recomputed from summed game logs, not averaged; innings pitched are converted from the API's decimal notation before any ERA or WHIP arithmetic. Player ages pulled live from the Stats API. Yunior Marte's Last 7 row equals his entire major league line and Jacob Bresnahan shows two Last 7 rows, one per level, both labeled per the small-sample rule. Ramon Marquez's and Henry Lalane's pre-trade lines were compiled with Philadelphia and New York respectively; Marcelo Mayer's major league line was compiled with Boston. The ACL Giants finished their season July 23 and the DSL Giants Black finished within the prior window, which is why several Deep Cuts and Joniel Hernandez carry final lines. Rankings: Prospects1500 2026 board plus the 2026 draft class, the deadline acquisitions and prior merit additions, adjusted weekly on performance and roster moves. Board depth is 51, down from 53: Anthony Molina (25) and Yunior Marte (32) moved to MLB Rookies; one merit move, Cam Maldonado 17 to 12; one swap, Jordan and Lalane at 9 and 10; every other rank shift is displacement and says so. Hot/Warm/Stable/Cold by L7 OPS for hitters; composite ERA, WHIP, K, BB for pitchers. MLB Rookies carries tracked players whose most recent games are at the major league level, including those on the major league injured list and those on rehab assignments from it.