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Posey injury lingering, but catcher returning to Giants’ lineup against Cardinals

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SAN FRANCISCO– The Giants’ lone 2017 All-Star is returning to the starting lineup in the team’s series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals on Thursday night at AT&T Park.

Buster Posey has been out of action since Sunday with a bone bruise to his left thumb. The Giants’ catcher suffered the injury on August 20 when his thumb bent backwards while applying a tag at home plate. Posey played through the discomfort for a week, before missing the entire three-game series in San Diego earlier this week.

“He felt yesterday that he’d be okay to go today,” Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy said prior to Thursday’s game. “He can take (batting practice) and tell me he’s not ready, but right now he’s in the lineup.”

Bochy hopes that Posey’s return will provide a jolt to a Giants lineup that failed to score at least three runs during any of their six games on the road against Arizona and San Diego.

Posey will hit cleanup and be back in the squat. However, he won’t be catching Madison Bumgarner, who was Thursday’s scheduled starter. Instead, it’ll be Matt Cain starting for Bumgarner, who was scratched with flu-like symptoms.

Chills, fever. He (Bumgarner) felt that a couple days ago. He thought it was getting better, but it’s actually getting worse. That’s why we got to scratch him and that’s why Matt Cain is starting,” Bochy said. 

“(Bumgarner) will be here shortly to be checked out and then we’re going to send him back home.”

Bochy added that Sunday would be the soonest that Bumgarner would be inserted back into the rotation.

Another player that Bochy and the Giants are looking forward to getting back is outfielder Austin Slater, who has been out since the beginning of July with a torn adductor muscle.

Slater is scheduled to play five innings for the Sacramento River Cats on Friday. Bochy added that the rookie – who hit .290 in his first 100 at-bats – will likely find his way back to the major league roster.

“He’ll probably come up here. I don’t know if he’ll be ready or not, but we’ll see how it goes in these next three or four games,” Bochy said. “We could use a little help (against left-handed pitching).”