Giants’ Buster Posey tells teammates he is not hurt
SAN FRANCISCO — Buster Posey did not appear to be in pain. His face did not crease into a grimace. In the moments after a 93 mph fastball drilled him behind the left ear, he sat in the dirt and stared ahead.
He looked like he was pondering where he left his car keys.
The first baseball game of the season at Third and King is always a celebratory affair, full of ceremony, saturated sights and plush sounds. But there was a minute of sickening silence shortly after the perfect, three-part harmony of the cast of “Hamilton” and before cheers that accompanied Mark Melancon’s recording the final out in the Giants’ 4-1 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The loudest and least forgettable sound of the afternoon was the thwack in the first inning when Taijuan Walker threw a pitch that Posey could not avoid. The ball struck him on the helmet and its impact crumpled him to the dirt.
It was the second pitch that Posey saw at home this season, and although he was able to get up under his own power, there was no discussion about trying to stay in the game.
The Giants put Posey through a full concussion protocol. They did not diagnose him with one, and Posey told teammates that he felt fine. But the Giants have gone to this state fair a few times. They know from recent experience with second baseman Joe Panik that symptoms often don’t manifest themselves right away.
“Yeah, he seems fine. He said he felt fine, which is good,” Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford said. “But Joe thought he felt good last year, also.
“You hope he feels fine tomorrow. He’s going to come in and probably get his heart rate going and see how he feels. You don’t really know with these injuries.”
The Giants added no insult by losing their home opener. Matt Moore was brilliant over eight innings, and in a play not often seen beyond Little League, the Giants scored three runs on the pitcher’s swinging bunt in the fourth inning.
Moore had missed a sign and tried to bunt the first pitch with the bases loaded, then swung at the next offering and hit a dribbler to the first base side of the mound. Walker fielded it and skipped his throw to the plate as Crawford scored. Panik came home as catcher Jeff Mathis scrambled to the backstop and threw to Walker covering the dish. Walker tried to snap his tag but neglected to catch the ball first. So Panik scored, and Jarrett Parker dashed home as well.
It was the old “run thrown in,” or RTI, as Tim Flannery called it, that the Giants used to their benefit on a couple of occasions in the 2014 postseason.
Crawford added a sacrifice fly and Melancon did not allow the tying run to come to the plate while recording his second save in less than 24 hours, and his first in front of his new fans.
“Mark’s a beast,” Moore said. “I’ll take him every day.”