Noah Lowry's Career As a Giant All But Over After Yet Another Surgery

Before the 2009 season began and when there was hope that Noah Lowry would pitch this year, I wrote a column comparing which pitcher, Lowry or Jonathan Sanchez, would be the better option for the fifth starter spot.

With Lowry missing the previous year because of arm injury after arm injury, it would be a serious accomplishment for him to not just win the final spot in the Giants' rotation, but to just put up a serious fight for it.

In that article, Lowry was the overwhelming choice to be the fifth starter even though he was coming off a year where he barely even threw on flat ground.

His consistency and past performances before he hit the disabled list were the selling points for basically every single person.

However, just like what hurt him the season before, he never got the chance to even make his case as to why he should be the final piece to the starting pitching puzzle for the Giants.

As we learned just days before camp began, Lowry couldn't kick the injury bug and now, almost 40 games into the 2009 season, it seems as though Lowry's career as a Giant is essentially over.

First reported in the San Jose Mercury News by beat writer Andrew Baggarly on Monday night, Lowry will have surgery to remove a rib on the left side with recovery time expected to take around three months.

With the recovery time being so long and all the injury trouble he has had the last 16 months, Lowry won't be able to pitch in a game this season, which is something a pitcher never wants to hear.

It's the final blow to a pitcher who had looked to be coming into his own.

He led the Giants in wins in 2007, when he went 14-8 despite missing the final month of the season because of a arm trouble, something that would become a regular on his road to recovery.

The news is hard enough to absorb, but even more so with Sanchez struggling so mightily and questions as to whether he can stick in the rotation are starting to come about.

Lowry has a $6.25 million option for next season, and with this most-recent injury news, there is no way the Giants will pick it up.

A team may take a flier on him, but the inability to stay healthy seemingly puts a halt to pitching in the majors any time soon.

He is a true Giant at heart minus the Southern California roots, but the giant injury problems are the ones that ended his career in San Francisco.