The San Francisco Giants say they will stop paying outfielder Harrison Bader, who reinjured his already-fragile left foot in a 2 a.m. electric-scooter crash in the Marina District — a rare move that legal experts and the players' union may contest.

What began as one of the odder injuries of the baseball season has escalated into a contract fight. Bader, already on the injured list since late May with plantar fasciitis, crashed his scooter in the early hours of Sunday — by one account into the back of a parked San Francisco fire engine — and the Giants now say they are "suspending payment" on his $20.5 million deal. The incident lands at the intersection of two San Francisco stories: a struggling ballclub's roster headaches, and the city's steady drumbeat of electric-scooter collisions.

San Francisco Giants outfielder Harrison Bader was riding an electric scooter through the Marina District at roughly 2 a.m. Sunday when he crashed, was transported to a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries, and reinjured the left foot that had already kept him off the field for two months.

The San Francisco Police and Fire departments did not name Bader but confirmed, in response to a San Francisco Chronicle inquiry, that an individual was hurt in a vehicle collision while riding a scooter in the Marina and taken to a local hospital. The Giants confirmed Tuesday that the rider was Bader, saying he would undergo an MRI "to better understand the severity of the injuries sustained."

Then the story took a turn no injury report anticipated. On Thursday, the Giants announced they would stop paying him.

"Over the weekend, Harrison Bader was involved in an accident that has delayed Harrison's prior treatment timeline for plantar fasciitis and, unfortunately, his return to the field," president of baseball operations Buster Posey said in a press release. "We are still investigating the circumstances of the accident, but will be suspending payment to Harrison until he is able to resume performing services for the club."

That is a legally aggressive posture, and it may not hold. As MLB Trade Rumors' Anthony Franco noted, teams generally cannot suspend pay for injuries unrelated to a breach of the player's contract — and Bader was already hurt before the crash. Standard MLB contracts bar players from off-field activities carrying "substantial risk of injury," the hook the Giants appear to be reaching for. Neither Bader's representatives nor the MLB Players Association had responded as of Thursday, but a grievance is a live possibility.

The financial stakes are smaller than the $20.5 million headline suggests. Bader is earning $10.5 million in 2026, but $6 million of that was a signing bonus already paid; only about $1.42 million of his $4.5 million salary remains for the season. Whether the Giants try to claw back a prorated slice of the bonus is unclear. He is owed $10 million in 2027.

The particulars of the crash remain murky. The outlet SFist reported the scooter struck the back of a San Francisco fire engine, which then rolled over Bader's foot — an account neither the Giants nor the city has formally confirmed. MLB.com's Maria Guardado and the San Jose Mercury News' Justice delos Santos both flagged that Bader was suspended 19 games at the University of Florida in 2014 following what was reported to be an alcohol-related scooter accident.

Manager Tony Vitello has said Bader is now out for the season, and described a player whose recovery was already grim before the pavement got involved.

"Reached out to him, asked him if he was OK. Obviously he's not better than he was prior to that," Vitello told reporters Tuesday.

For San Francisco, the crash is also one more entry in a familiar ledger. The Dissent has documented a string of electric-scooter and e-bike collisions across the city this year — a fleeing suspect who fractured a 72-year-old woman's arm on Powell Street, an e-bike that struck a pedestrian at the Embarcadero — and a millionaire ballplayer clipped in the Marina at 2 a.m. underscores that the risk cuts across every rung of the city. Bader hit .170 in 30 games before the injury; the Giants are running a Grant McCray–Drew Gilbert platoon in center field, and center field will be a shopping-list item again this winter — whenever this contract dispute is settled.