On Sunday evening, Buster Posey walked into the visiting clubhouse in Phoenix with tape around his left thumb.
Posey had just finished a weekend series in which the San Francisco Giants were swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks, a series in which Posey went 1-for-11 at the plate.
It was a brutal three-game set for a team that insists it’s playing for pride after it had plans on contending in a National League West race that never materialized. Judging by the results against Arizona, playing for pride went about as well as competing in the division this season, as San Francisco was wiped out of town in an 11-0 blowout on Sunday.
While a team that’s now a season-high 28 games under .500 doesn’t have much in the way of concrete results to show for the pride they’re pursuing, Posey’s willingness to play through pain is a sign the Giants haven’t caved yet.
After Sunday’s game, Posey called his thumb injury “a nuisance more than anything else,” and when asked if he would attempt to play through it, he said he’d already done so for a week. Posey only spent six innings behind the plate across three games in Arizona, and he’s out of the lineup on Monday in San Diego, but all signs point to Posey continuing to catch with regularity.
Posey doesn’t plan on taking a 10-day stint on the disabled list to nurse himself back to full health, and neither his aching teammates.
The Giants’ All-Star catcher isn’t the only member of the team’s core that’s battling aches and pains, but he is the player who sets the tone for the rest of the club. If Posey isn’t opting for time off, neither is Brandon Crawford, Hunter Pence, or Mark Melancon. Though his rehab process has been filled with the twists and turns you’d see on Lombard Street, Johnny Cueto is determined to rejoin the Giants’ rotation in the near future. Joe Panik battled another concussion, but as soon as he was able to return to the field, he participated in rehab games and ultimately started again on Friday.
Pence and Crawford are hampered by nagging hamstring injuries, but both players will start on Monday in San Diego. Neither player has been blessed with great health this season, and though a trip to the disabled list might clear up lingering pain, there’s a month left in the season, and both Pence and Crawford want to play.
Melancon’s case is unique, because he said recently he’s felt pain in his pronator every day this season. The Giants are optimistic Melancon can’t do more damage by pitching, but there’s a case to be made that resting his arm in a season that doesn’t matter would help San Francisco’s cause in the future. Melancon won’t have it.
As the calendar prepares to turn from August and September, there’s very few players who belong to any team’s core that aren’t dealing with their share of aches and pains. A casual observer looks at the sport of baseball and thinks there’s less running, less physical activity and less contact for participants than there is in football, basketball, soccer and any number of other sports. But a 162-game schedule takes its toll, and with 30 games left, players like Posey, Pence and Crawford might be best served by taking an extended rest.
Instead, though, manager Bruce Bochy has indicated the Giants’ core players will take a day off here or there, but will continue to be fixtures in the team’s starting lineup. As rosters expand from 25 players to 40 players at the start of September, the Giants don’t need all their regulars to play through pain. Yet as the club continues its march toward the final day of the regular season, Posey and the rest of the Giants’ starters will manage their various injuries, and continue to take the field.
Though they’ll certainly struggle, and could come up short of the subjective goal of pride they hope to achieve, as long as they’re on the field, their pursuit is still valid.