Thursday, May 26, 2011

Busted Posey and Your Battered Giants

Brian Wilson
Andres Torres
Cody Ross
Santiago Casilla
Mark DeRosa
Barry Zito
Pablo Sandoval

Buster Posey

The list is long for the Giants who have been on the Disabled List this year, and now we have probably our best position player in Buster Posey with a serious injury.

As Murph said this morning on KNBR, the party is over. The hit on Buster in the top of the 12th inning as Scott Cousins went to score on the sac fly was gut wrenching. Watch the replay at your own risk, but you can tell Buster's left foot was bent backwards on the play.

As I'm writing this, there is a tweet by Pablo Sandoval saying that he's sad because Buster is out for the season. Whether this is true or not, a possible broken ankle in addition to possible torn ligaments in his knee, does not look good for the prospects of seeing Buster back in action any time soon.

As much as people like to say that a team is more than one person, and that all 25 guys must contribute, Giants fans know that Buster Posey is the heart and soul of this team and one of the main reasons we celebrated a World Series Championship last year. Without him behind the dish and at the plate, I don't see this team coming close to repeating.

So far because of the depth of this team, every injury has had some sort of an answer. When Zito came out, Vogelsong came to the rescue (and may have stolen his job). When Panda got injured, Fontenot became a one man spark plug and helped us win some games. And with DeRosa out, the Giants were able to bring up Emmanuel Burriss who has already helped the Giants win two games in walk-off fashion.

But with Posey out, I don't see a viable replacement that can give the kind of production and more importantly, the presence that he provided.

To correspond with injuries to Buster and the sprained ankle of Darren Ford, the Giants called up catcher Chris Stewart and this year's rookie Brandon Belt. The silver lining here is that Brandon Belt has been absolutely crushing the ball in Fresno, and been waiting on his shot to prove he should be an everyday major leaguer again. If there's anyone who can fill the offensive void of Buster, it might be Belt. Not to mention that Eli Whiteside is no slouch behind the dish, as he does have credit for catching Jonathan Sanchez's no-hitter.

The season is far far from over, but this injury has definitely thrown a wrench into the 2011 repeat effort.

Get well soon Buster, if not 2011, we'll get em in 2012


Laws of the Day


Anyone got Bengie Molina's number?

2 comments:

  1. I saw it live on TV...the saddest thing I ever saw :(

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  2. Yeah.... very sad, especially since you know what kind of career this kid is capable of, but hopefully its just a bump in the road, and not the end of a cliff.

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