Struggling Giants outfielder Mark DeRosa said Tuesday that MRI tests conducted earlier in the day revealed that the surgically repaired area of his left wrist has completely ruptured again.

DeRosa, who signed a two-year, $12 million contract with the Giants on Dec. 29, just two months after having surgery to repair a torn tendon sheath, had a battery of tests that included a nerve conduction test along with the MRI. DeRosa said he has been experiencing numbness in his left index finger and pinkie for "two to three weeks."

DeRosa and the Giants are taking a wait-and-see approach on how to proceed.

Manager Bruce Bochy said DeRosa wouldn't start for at least the first two games of the San Diego series, which opened Tuesday, to see if the nerve numbness improves. Asked if there was any structural damage to DeRosa's wrist, Bochy said, "I think it's fine. We just need to get this nerve to calm down."

Even if rest helps, DeRosa called his wrist surgery "a total failure. The ligament is flopping all over the place again."

He said he will need surgery again at some point but doesn't know when. While he said he doesn't think the nerve issue was related to his current wrist problem, DeRosa added he won't know until he gives the hand some rest.

"It definitely will be (operated on again)," he said. "It's just a matter of when, whether it'll be in the offseason ... that's what my hope is. Because I can honestly say I'm not in agony. You don't see me grimacing up at the plate. It's not something that's restricting me per se, like I'm scared I'm hurt. But it's just not firing. It's not getting anything."

Of the finger numbness, DeRosa said, "I feel like my bottom hand is underwater. I don't have much feeling in my bottom two fingers. I think right now, we've got to get the nerve calmed down. I've got to be able to feel the bat in my hands. The wrist is something I've dealt with now since last July. Do I think it's hindering me? Yeah, absolutely. But do I think I could play and have it fixed at another time? Yeah, that's what I'm hoping."

DeRosa, 35, is hitting .194 with just one home run and 10 RBIs in 93 at-bats, and virtually every ball he hits is to the right side of the field. Visually and verbally frustrated, DeRosa said he didn't know when or how he reinjured the wrist.

DeRosa said he "didn't feel great" when he started to hit before Giants camp opened, "but I just figured that was part of coming back from wrist surgery. And in spring training, you can kind of dance around it. You can feel good and get a couple of windblown doubles in the gap, and everybody thinks you're ready to go.

"But for me, I know I'm not right. When was the last time I pulled a baseball? I try to be the good veteran and go out there and grind it out," he continued. "But man, going 0 for 5 every day and popping balls up to second that you normally hit in the left-center gap? I can't do that. I'm hurting the team."

The finger numbness only compounded his hitting woes, he said, and it reached a head Saturday against Mets starter Johan Santana in New York.

"I got pitches I should have demolished," he said. "That's no knock on Johan, but I came up to the plate and Johan's throwing 88-89 (mph), and I was sitting on a middle-in fastball and it was there on a tee. When it came out of his hand, I'm saying this is a bare-minimum double to left-center, and the next thing I know I'm hitting a weak pop-up to second base. I ran to first and threw my helmet down and said, 'Something's wrong.'

"The best-case scenario is that I get most of the feeling back in my bottom two fingers and I go out there and grind it out."

And the worst-case scenario of more surgery soon?

"I don't know, we haven't gotten to that point," he said. "But I would definitely think it's conceivable. I'm not going to stink all year."

— Second baseman Emmanuel Burriss, who is recovering from a fractured left foot suffered in spring training, will be with the Giants during this homestand for evaluation, although he is not on the roster. Burriss said he could be ready for a rehab assignment within four weeks, but Bochy said that might be an overly optimistic assessment.