In what Giants hope is the last story of its kind they see this year, manager Bruce Bochy confirmed that second baseman Freddy Sanchez had arthroscopic shoulder on his shoulder and his status for Opening Day could be in doubt.

Another report says that Sanchez’s procedure took place in late December with an original recovery time set at eight weeks. That would have had Sanchez returning to the field shortly after the Giants began their spring training schedule. But now, he has had a setback that has put his status for opening day in doubt.

This is the same shoulder that was bothering Sanchez prior to his trade from Pittsburgh to San Francisco, so that is of some concern. The fact that the Giants attempted to keep this procedure under wraps has led some to conclude that he almost certainly won’t be ready by Opening Day and may remain out until May. However, that’s just speculation.

Another school of thought is that the Giants wanted to keep Sanchez’s surgery quiet so that it couldn’t be used as leverage against the Giants by agents representing free-agent infielders the Giants wanted to sign or re-sign.

If this timeline is correct, the Giants re-signed Juan Uribe about a week or two after Sanchez had this procedure done. And that’s the good news for the Giants. If Sanchez is not ready to go by early April, they can easily plug Uribe in at second base every day until Sanchez is ready to go.

The Giants were looking for a way to get Uribe in the lineup every day, as the recent signings of Aubrey Huff and now Bengie Molina made that goal a little tougher. Now Uribe will get all of the spring and perhaps some of the regular season to establish his bat in the lineup.