Giants' Belt says he battled depression after suffering 4th concussion

San Francisco Giants first baseman Brandon Belt opened up about the season-ending concussion he suffered last August, one he says had serious repercussions on his mental health.

"Small things would make me angry, and that's not me," Belt told Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic. "And my family, they took the brunt of it. I've always tried my best not to take the game home with me. But that was something I couldn’t do anything about.

"Depression is a good word for it," he said.

Belt sustained the fourth documented concussion of his career in a game on Aug. 5 when he was hit in the head by a pitch from Arizona Diamondbacks left-hander Anthony Banda. After being sent home in an effort to recover, Belt says he quickly became more irritable and would refuse to come out of his room, choosing instead to sit for hours in the dark. Belt's wife, Haylee, also noticed the lingering effects.

"I'd get impatient with him," she said. "I'd be, 'Come out of the room, you’ve been sleeping all day.' But you also know that he’s obviously not the only one who goes through this."

Now fully healthy, Belt, an All-Star in 2016, says he's "happy to be around everybody" and feels back up to speed. The 29-year-old enters the season as an important piece to a revamped team that added Andrew McCutchen and Evan Longoria this offseason.

In 104 games last year, Belt finished hitting .241/.355/.469 with 2.3 WAR and 119 wRC+.