To say that Brandon Belt's 2022 MLB season was disappointing would be an understatement.
Coming off two of the best seasons of his career in 2020 and 2021, the Giants' first baseman battled a chronic knee injury throughout 2022 before opting for season-ending surgery on Sept. 3.
Belt joined KNBR 680's Tom Tolbert and FP Santangelo on Wednesday afternoon, where he discussed the complications with his knee that persisted throughout the season and how they impacted him on the field.
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"I was just in pain the entire year and there was nothing we could do to get rid of it," Belt said. "The most important thing for me was the swelling, we couldn't get the swelling to go down. We did everything imaginable, we drained it multiple times ... we did pretty much everything you could outside of surgery and the swelling would go down for maybe a day or two and then it would come right back. So at that point, I felt no strength in my knee, no strength in my leg and I really got to a point where -- even if I wanted to and swung as hard as I could -- I couldn't hit the ball out of the ballpark. That was kind of the moment where I was like you know what, I don't think I have any more in me this year, it needs to be taken care of."
Belt did everything he could to play through the injury and eventually, he was just unable to do his job.
"Pretty much anything you do physically, once you lose your legs, everything seems to go right behind that," Belt explained. "You don't want to make excuses, because most people in that locker room are dealing with something and they're not complaining about it, they're going out there every day and doing what they have to do to win ballgames. I didn't want to be that guy that complained all the time about it, I just wanted to go out there and work around it and try to do my best despite the problems I had. I just got to a point where I can't do it anymore."
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San Francisco Giants
It remains to be seen if Belt, a free agent after the 2022 season, has played his final game with the Giants. In joining NBC Sports Bay Area's Giants broadcasters Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow in the booth on Sept. 14, Belt proclaimed that there was nowhere else he wants to play than with the Giants.
If he's healthy and willing to come back at the right price, there's always a possibility the Giants would welcome him back for his 13th season.