Spring Training recap—Day 3

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

The Giants suffered another injury Monday when it was revealed that minor league second baseman Charlie Culberson will be out indefinitely with a broken finger on his left hand. Hank Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle was the first to tweet the news. Andrew Baggarly of Comcast SportsNet says that Culberson dropped a weight on the tip of his finger.

Yesterday, news about Ryan Vogelsong‘s back injury reverberated throughout Giants nation. Vogelsong, who is also battling the crud, will be out up to two weeks after straining his back lifting weights. Maybe trainer Dave Groeschner needs to start doing safety sessions in the weight room.

The injury to Culberson isn’t exactly a blow of the Buster Posey or Freddy Sanchez proportion, but with the way things panned out last season, fans don’t really want the “Another Day, Another Injury” tune to get stuck in their heads.

Culberson, 22, wouldn’t have made the team anyway. The Giants’ 2007 first round draft pick spent the entire 2011 season at Double-A Richmond, where he batted .259/.293/.382 (0.675 OPS) with 10 HR, 56 RBI and 14 stolen bases in 137 games (587 plate appearances). Culberson’s a mid-range prospect who I rated 21st on my “22 Giants Prospects You Need To Know” list back in November.

In other Day 3 news…

• Brian Wilson continues to make progress as he slowly works his arm back into shape after experiencing serious elbow problems all of last year, evidently. According to Schulman , manager Bruce Bochy declared Wilson’s bullpen session today “better than it was three days ago.” Baggarly quoted Bochy as saying, “I don’t think he needs a lot of outings, to be honest” and adds that Wilson is throwing pain-and-hiccup-free at about 80 percent right now.

Wilson also reportedly pitched with sore hips and a sore back for most of last year. (Funny, he looked fine busting moves in San Francisco mayor Ed Lee’s campaign video). Looks like B-Weez will pitch in the pen every three days and begin pitching in Cactus League games on or around March 11.

• Tim Lincecum spent some time working on his pickoff move today, per Schulman. He was notorious for letting opposing base runners get huge leads and swipe bases off him last year, so it’s good to see Timmy upping his game in that area.

• KNBR host Marty Lurie reported that Heath Hembree was throwing at about 95 mph today.

• Finally, in one of the strangest stories of the spring so far, Kevin Kaduk at Yahoo’s Big League Stew writes that former Giants outfielder Carlos Beltran recently footed the bill for his ex-Mets teammate Jonathon Niese‘s nose job. before and after pics at BLS.