Brewers SS Alex Gonzalez to join Carlos Gomez, Mat Gamel on 15-day Disabled List

The Milwaukee Brewers‘ quest to repeat as National League Central champions  just became a whole lot more difficult.

In the second inning of their 5-2 loss to the San Francisco Giants Saturday afternoon, newly acquired 35-year-old free-agent shortstop Alex Gonzalez appeared to have badly injured his right ankle while attempting to steal second after singling in a run off Giants hurler Madison Bumgarner. Gonzalez’s basepath snafu now marks the fourth straight game where a Brewers regular has exited with an injury.

Brewers beat writer Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the Brewers plan to place Gonzalez on the 15-day disabled list via his Twitter page earlier today, saying:

In 88 plate appearances this season, Gonzalez has posted a .250/.318/.450 line with  four home runs an 14 runs batted in, ranking third only to left-fielder Ryan Braun and right-fielder Corey Hart with 36 total bases. General manager Doug Melvin inked Gonzalez to a one-year, $4.25 millon 2012 contract with a vesting $4 million option hoping he’d help to shore up Milwaukee’s porous infield from a season ago, though he’s been a shell of his former self defensively this season, garnering just a .969 fielding percent and 4.42 range factor thus far.

It has been announced that the Brewers have selected the contracts of 30-year-old journeyman shortstop Edwin Maysonet and 25-year-old infielding prospect Taylor Green from AAA Nashville to fill the void left behind from Gonzalez’s injury. More details to come regarding the story in the subsequent hours.

Alec Dopp covers the Milwaukee Brewers as a featured columnist at Bleacher Report.  Follow him on Twitter @alecdopp and read his blog.