San Francisco Giants closer Brian Wilson, known almost as much for his larger-than-life whiskers and Taco Bell commercials as for his performance on the mound, has fallen victim to structural damage in his throwing elbow.

The hurler, who has become one of the most recognized faces in professional sports in the last two years, confirmed Sunday his injury will keep him sidelined for the rest of the year while he undergoes and recovers from the dreaded Tommy John surgery.

After last season, when a shattered leg ended the year of catcher Buster Posey and all but doomed San Francisco to a season of excruciating offensive mediocrity, Giants’ fans are used to their team being bitten by the injury bug. It might be easy for fans to see one of their beloved stars fall and immediately give in to melancholy.

How is a team to get by without its all-star closer?

Well, don’t surrender just yet. Put down the knife, we’re going to get through this. I’ll tell you why.

First of all, the Giants have been without Wilson for a year now. According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Wilson said Sunday he was having more elbow problems last year than the fans or media knew. He said in 2011, he was pitching on “borrowed time,” meaning Tommy John surgery was inevitable.

And in retrospect, boy was it obvious.

While Wilson has always had a tendency to make things interesting by putting a couple guys on base before closing a game out, things got a little ridiculous in 2011. For every nine innings pitched last year, Wilson walked a laughable 5.1 batters, up from an already-too-high 3.1 in 2010, his breakout year.

Additionally, the velocity on his fastball was down from an average of 96.5 MPH in 2009 to just more than 94 in 2011. This was at least part of the reason why his strikeouts per nine innings was down from 11.2 in 2010 to 8.8 last year. All of these things combined caused his ERA to shoot from 1.81 to 3.11 in last season’s campaign. He still had plenty of saves with 36, but this was primarily because the Giants played so many close games. 

Even if Wilson’s injury hadn’t come to a head Thursday in Colorado and he had continued to pitch all season like he did in 2011, the Giants would be worse off. He just wasn’t that valuable last year.

In his absence, manager Bruce Bochy will have to find someone to fill the vacant position. And luckily for the Giants, the front office has built a bullpen with plenty of depth.

Perhaps most likely to get the nod is Sergio Romo, who in 2011 had by far the best season of his young career. The kid just keeps getting better. In all the areas where Wilson fell off, Romo has improved.

He walked less than one batter every nine innings and consequently had a Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched, a measure of total earned baserunners of just .708, the lowest of any pitcher in baseball with at least 40 innings pitched. What’s more, his strikeout-to-walk ratio was an astronomical 14.

In other words, the ninth inning would be in good hands with Romo.

Heath Hembree, the 23 year-old fifth-round pick in the 2010 draft, had the kind of season in 2011 that fills fantasy baseball players with hope for the future.

Splitting time evenly last year between Single-A San Jose and Double-A Richmond, Hembree led the minors with 38 saves and struck out more than 13 batters every nine innings.

Oh, and Hembree’s fastball, which generally sits in the upper 90s, has been known to touch 99 MPH.

Since Hembree has only seen 67 and one-third innings of professional action as of Monday, a case could be made he needs more seasoning before getting the ball in the ninth inning of a major league game. But the potential to eventually surpass the ability of even a healthy Wilson is definitely there. Fans should certainly get a look at Hembree before the season is over.

So there’s no reason to be glum about Wilson. Sure, we all love the beard and “The Machine,” but this is actually the best thing that could have happened to the Giants’ bullpen this season.

Alex Grotewohl can be reached at [email protected].