Seven weeks into this mixed bag of a Giants season, Buster Posey is starting to feel right again, to feel the way he did before his career came crashing down during that devastating, bone-crunching collision at the plate.
One year ago next Friday. The Giants will be in the midst of a four-game series – coincidentally – against those same Marlins in Miami. That will be anything but a happy anniversary.
Even for a bruiser like Posey, a 6-foot-1, 218-pound catcher from a small town in Georgia, comebacks like these are a delicate dance. There are no guarantees about a recovery, about recapturing a career. One foot forward, one foot back. Admittedly, he gives an inch these days when awaiting a throw and the opportunity to tag out another runner.
“In the past, I set up in front of the plate,” Posey said after his RBI double supported Ryan Vogelsong’s seven-inning, one-hit 4-0 victory Saturday over the Oakland A’s. “I never set out to block the plate. But this year, more than anything, it’s being conscious of being in the best possible position if there is contact.”
Whatever Posey’s doing, it’s working. In his mind. In his rehab. In his approach. At the plate, both when he crouches and when he swings. He doesn’t wince when he senses a runner coming down the line and doesn’t hesitate to push his left cleats into the dirt as he plants and swings, either.
As the Giants prepare to close out the weekend homestand with the Athletics, he is hitting .302, leading the Giants in walks, catching most of the games (26), occasionally playing first base (seven games) and only once in a while requiring a day off.
The Giants can almost – almost – stop holding their breath. Posey’s recovery from the surgery that required the insertion of three screws into his left ankle and cost him most of his sophomore season is progressing as well as anyone within the organization could have hoped.
“I’m using him more than I probably envisioned,” Bruce Bochy acknowledged. “Of course, playing him at first base helps. I’d like to catch him a bit more … going back and forth makes it tough. It’s a skilled position, hard to get a rhythm. And he wants to catch.”
But no complaints. The Giants are too darn grateful to get greedy. The last thing Bochy needs is for his cleanup hitter and his most important position player – and the player who quietly commands his clubhouse – to suffer a serious setback. With his club hovering around the .500 mark, sputtering offensively and faltering defensively, he has plenty of other issues occupying his time.
Pablo Sandoval is on the disabled list. Two-time Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum has not been his usual dominating self. The Brandons – Belt and Crawford – are promising but erratic. Brian Wilson is out for the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. Collectively, the Giants botch too many of the most fundamental plays, and, as Bochy says, ya gotta catch the ball.
After Saturday’s victory over an A’s club that managed only a sharp single by Seth Smith, the Giants’ manager suggested that this is about as good as these Giants are going to look. The starter (Vogelsong) threw a strong seven innings; relievers Javier Lopez and Clay Hensley closed out the eighth and ninth, respectively; and somewhere in the interim, the Giants capitalized on infield hits (Emmanuel Burriss), hit batters (Vogelsong) and timely hits to cobble together some runs.
In the second game of this three-game interleague matchup, the Giants scored all four runs after Grant Balfour replaced Tyson Ross. They got an RBI fly ball from Melky Cabrera and a two-run single by Angel Pagan that followed Posey’s blast that bounced on the warning track and over the center-field wall.
“You hit the ball 415 feet, and it (bounces), it’s like, ‘Ah, come on now!’” Posey said, smiling, shaking his head.
In a more serious moment, he said he discusses his medical situation often and openly with Bochy and the Giants trainers. He reveals when the ankle is cranky, he said, and either takes a day off or agrees to play first base.
“I feel good, though,” he said. “I’ve had good approaches, especially the last four or five games. It’s something all of us deal with … trying to keep the confidence going. This is not an easy game.”
