Willy Adames leaves Giants game vs Braves with back spasms

SAN FRANCISCO — It takes a lot for Willy Adames, who played 160 games last year and 161 the year before, to come out of a baseball game.So with that context, be the judge of just how much discomfort the Giants shortstop was in after going down swinging for the third time Sunday afternoon.He went back to the dugout and never emerged again, instead leaving the sick-as-a-dog Casey Schmitt to take over on defense.“It’s tight,” Adames said of his condition after the 3-2 win over the Braves.

“Painful.”A date with an MRI machine seems more likely for Adames than a return to the starting lineup when the Giants begin their series against the Diamondbacks on Monday.Adames exited the game after the seventh with lower back spasms.The issue has been bothering him for some time, dating back close to a week, he said.But after a few days of “grinding,” the ailment caught up to him late in Sunday’s win.His back locked up on him in his first at-bat, “and it just stayed there,” Adames said.“In that last at-bat, it just got worse.”Schmitt, who was a late scratch from Sunday’s lineup with a severe case of the flu going around the Giants’ clubhouse, was forced to enter the game at shortstop.With the Giants removing Buddy Kennedy from the roster to clear space for Heliot Ramos’ return, Schmitt was the only infielder left for manager Tony Vitello on the bench.“Going into the cage and telling him he was at shortstop, it was like waking a drunk guy up for a job interview,” Vitello joked.

“He didn’t look good.”Before the game, Vitello acknowledged that the Giants were “a little shorthanded probably relative to other teams” on the infield after the pregame roster moves.That now comes to a head with their starting shortstop potentially down at least in the short term and his only capable backup more focused on pounding fluids than fielding ground balls.Christian Koss, who fractured his left wrist shortly after being demoted to Triple-A Sacramento,...