As first reported by Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News, the Giants have acquired second baseman Mike Fontenot from the Cubs for minor-league outfielder Evan Crawford.
The Cubs are playing a series in San Francisco this week, so all Fontenot has to do is change out of his blue-and-white batting practice gear and don some black-and-orange. He’s probably ecstatic to be joining a pennant race and he should see his former Cubs and LSU double-play mate Ryan Theriot more frequently now that they are both out west.
Fontenot, 30, was batting just .284/.332/.402 with one homer in 169 at-bats for Chicago and is no better defensively than Freddy Sanchez, but we have to assume that he will work in a backup role anyway. Plus, it’s not like the Giants gave up much. Crawford, 22, is batting just .255/.319/.366 in 109 games at Single-A Augusta. He has some speed, but that might not be enough to carry him all the way to the big leagues.