SAN FRANCISCO–There’s no worse feeling for a baseball player than being voted off the island, but with reliever Will Smith set to rejoin the Giants next week, someone will lose a roster spot.

Smith is in the final stages of his rehab assignment with Triple-A Sacramento as the left-hander completes his long journey back from Tommy John surgery.

With 4.2 innings and five appearances under his belt for the Giants’ top affiliate, Smith is expected to be activated next week.

Smith’s return to the Giants will fortify a bullpen that could use another veteran left-handed presence, particularly after Josh Osich was placed on the disabled list Friday with a hip strain.

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Osich boasts a hard fastball and a wicked changeup, but he’s been inconsistent with his command and left too many pitches out over the plate and allowed nine runs in his first 10 innings this year. While free agent signee Tony Watson has helped the Giants neutralize left-handed hitters in the late innings, Osich wasn’t as effective as manager Bruce Bochy hoped coming out of spring training.

Before his injury, Osich was the likely candidate to be optioned to Triple-A to clear a space for Smith.

Now, the game of ‘Survivor’ that’s unfolding in the Giants’ bullpen will continue. With four games in three days against a tough Dodgers lineup featuring a pair of sweet-swinging lefties, Corey Seager and Cody Bellinger, Watson is the only left-hander the club will have available in relief.

It wasn’t even a month ago when right-hander Sam Dyson appeared to be pitching for his job, as the former Texas Rangers closer struggled through a miserable spring and a rocky first few weeks of the season.

Dyson blew up in the Giants’ April 11 loss to the D’Backs, allowing four hits and three runs in an inning. In his next outing, he served up a solo home run to Franchy Cordero in a loss to the Padres. But since Cordero took Dyson deep at Petco Park, the veteran reliever has strung together four straight scoreless outings.

Because Dyson’s sinker is so tough on right-handed hitters when he’s locating it, it’s hard for the Giants to simply give up on him and designate him for assignment, even though that’s what the Rangers did last season. Pitchers without options like Dyson and Cory Gearrin have more margin for error, because the Giants can’t ship them back to Sacramento like Osich and Roberto Gomez, who could return to the River Cats’ bullpen when Smith is activated.

While Gearrin may lose out on a few opportunities to pitch in high-leverage situations until his command proves more consistent, rookie Pierce Johnson could lose out on a chance to stick with the big league club because of the numbers crunch.

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For now, though, Johnson is attempting to hang onto his role after allowing runs in each of his last two outings. The right-hander has a sharp two-seam fastball that darts in on right-handed hitters, but Bochy has appeared reluctant to move Johnson past Dyson or Gearrin in the bullpen pecking order when the Giants are looking to protect leads.

While Johnson has more than held his own in his first month in the big leagues, the Giants’ biggest revelation out of the bullpen has been fellow rookie Reyes Moronta.

Moronta’s 98-mile per hour fastball is a tremendous asset for a club that doesn’t have many flamethrowers, and with improved command of his secondary offerings, Moronta could be on his way to a job at the back end of the bullpen in the near future.

At the very least, Moronta doesn’t appear destined to stay in any Sacramento-area hotels next week, but the roster calculations will be messy in the coming days.

Because the Giants need a sixth starter on Tuesday, it’s possible the club won’t activate Smith until Wednesday. That would allow San Francisco to call up lefty Andrew Suárez to start against the Padres and take the spot of a reliever, preventing the Giants from needing to option two players to Sacramento.

After Suárez’s start, the Giants can then send him to Sacramento and activate Smith.