As I'm sure you all know, Buster Posey is likely out for the season with a broken femur and torn ankle ligaments.
This is the absolute worst news that the Giants possibly could have received this season. I guess it's not the worst news considering he could have had some torn knee ligaments and been out into next season. So I guess there is a bright side.
The possible impact on the Giants has been talked to death so I'm not going to rehash that here.
What I do want to talk about are some controversial discussions about the events that surrounded Posey's injury.
The first being that Bruce Bochy is to blame because of the way that he handled the Bullpen. The theory is that if he had Romo pitch longer in the 8th rather than put Lopez in to pitch to a bunch of righties that the Giants' 9th inning rally would have won the game.
Please.
Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Bochy's utilization of Romo this season has been confonding to be sure. But Lopez has thrived in just about every situation that Boch has thrown him into. The Marlins are a good hitting team and there is no reason to believe that Romo would have done any better. Or that the Giants would have still gone on to score 4 runs in the bottom of the 9th (they wouldn't have since they only would have had to score 2 runs to walk-off) but the pitchers would have taken a completely different approach, the hitters would have taken a different approach, and the managers would have approached things different.
Cousins play was a dirty play. Of course it was dirty because it happened to our guy. But that isn't necessarily the case. Despite what Buster Posey's agent says. It doesn't matter where Posey was, it doesn't matter what position he was in, Cousin's job is to score there. No matter what the cost. The throw beat him and was on the money. He doesn't know that Posey dropped it. He can try to avoid the tag or he can go for contact to try and knock it loose. He chose to knock it loose. For whatever reason, he thought that was his best chance to score the game winning run. Now, if it's the top of the second rather than the top of the 12th he probably makes a different decision, but as Giants fans always say after a Bochy decision "what if they lose the division by one game?". The play was legit and it is part of baseball.
That leads to the ridiculous talk about trying to outlaw collisions at the plate. Despite what the various blogs around are trying to tell you, there is a lot more contact in baseball than they are saying. All we hear about is that the only time players collide is when they are coming home.
That's total B.S.
What about when a player comes in hard to break up a double play? What about when a pitcher covering first base can't slow down in time and runs into the baserunner? How about when a player gets hit by a pitch?
People are calling for some kind of a rule change to prevent collisions at the plate. What are they going to do? Do the softball thing where the runner doesn't even touch home plate? Call him out if he does? Then you need to outlaw hard slides, don't let pitchers cover first, and outlaw beanballs. It's ridiculous. For all the talk about the danger of collisions at the plate, the only one I can think of that really ended someones career, or at least changed that player forever, is when Pete Rose destroyed Ray Fosse in the All-star game.
Alright, my rant is over, I sure hope Buster recovers from this. If the Giants aren't seriously looking into some kind of a position change with him, they are crazy. Look at what has been going on with Joe Mauer in Minnesota to see what can happen to guys like this. Hopefully it can happen BEFORE Buster signs a $150 million contract.
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