The San Francisco Giants are promoting top prospect Bryce Eldridge as they try to close the gap in the National League Wild Card race, a league source confirmed to The Athletic’s Will Sammon on Monday. He’s the No. 28 prospect in baseball in The Athletic’s Keith Law’s latest rankings.

Eldridge, 20, has been moved aggressively through the Giants’ system, going from Double A to Triple A in June despite a high strikeout rate.

With a three-game series against the surging Diamondbacks in Arizona on the horizon Monday, the Giants are calling up reinforcement to replace some of the left-handed power of Dominic Smith, who sustained a moderate hamstring injury playing first base on Friday.

The news was first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Eldridge has played in 102 games this year, slowed by a wrist injury at the start of the season, then by a hamstring strain that kept him out of action for Triple-A Sacramento from June 21 to July 18. He’s hit .255 with an .875 OPS, 15 homers and 50 RBIs in 50 games since returning from his injury. He’s also struck out at a nearly 31 percent rate.

The Giants (75-74) seemingly aren’t put off by Eldridge’s aggressiveness at the plate. After losing two games in a row with a combined score of 23-9 to the division-leading Los Angeles Dodgers, they entered Monday 1 1/2 games out of a wild-card berth. With the New York Mets (77-73) in free fall and about to face the San Diego Padres (82-68), the Giants could stand to scuttle their usual player development plans.

Eldridge, a left-handed hitter, was the No. 16 pick in the 2023 draft. Law wrote in July that Eldridge’s struggles with strikeouts at Triple A were “hardly a surprise given his inexperience and the size of the 6-foot-7 small-g giant’s strike zone. He’s still got 70 power, topping out at 114.6 mph for Sacramento this year, and if he were at a more appropriate level for his age and experience I have little doubt he’d be hitting for average. He was in the same draft class as Kevin McGonigle, for example, and McGonigle didn’t get the call to Double A until after Eldridge was in Triple A.

“There’s no rush here, especially given the poor history of hitters this tall, who (among other things) must learn to cover a lot of area at the plate. You can still see the 30-homer, solid OBP upside here, maybe with average defense (and a plus arm), but it’s going to take time.”

The Athletic’s Will Sammon contributed to this story.

(Photo: Scott Marshall / Getty Images)