For Posey, rest proves to be a powerful weapon
If Buster Posey keeps going like this, maybe more Major League Baseball players his age will start to consider taking a gap year. Or at least more days off. At a time of the season when his power numbers have historically started to fade, Posey, 34, looks healthy and refreshed, and is now on pace to reach 20 home runs for just the third time in 10 full bigleague seasons.
In 17 games since he returned from a thumb injury in July, Posey is hitting .362 with three homers, five doubles, and 11 RBI. In 28 at-bats this month, he has a slugging percentage of .679, raising it to a teamhigh .560 for the season. He has hit safely in eight of his last nine games.
Posey hit solo home runs against the Arizona Diamondbacks on both Tuesday and Wednesday, raising his season total to 15.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, nine of his homers this season have come after having at least one day off. Posey didn’t play Sunday on the road against Milwaukee and the Giants had the day off Monday.
“Between him and (manager Gabe Kapler) and whoever else goes into the lineup making or decisions on days off, they’ve done a good job this year of finding days to give him off and keep them a little more fresh than maybe past years,” shortstop Brandon Crawford said. “So he has his legs under him and is able to sustain that power.”
Posey did not play last year out of concern for his adopted twin baby girls, who were born about eight weeks premature last July amid the pandemic.
The time off also gave Posey’s body a chance to fully heal after a 2019 season in which he dealt with a concussion, a hamstring injury, and back and hip issues. Posey also had hip surgery in Aug. 2018.
Tuesday, Posey scored from first base on a Crawford double to center field, and his opposite-field homer Wednesday came off a Merrill Kelly fastball.
“A lot of that has to do with the work that Buster does on a regular basis to keep his body strong,” Kapler said. “We’ve talked about this on numerous occasions, but I do think the year with his family was extremely beneficial for him.”
“I was just happy that I made it there,” Posey said of Tuesday’s run from first base. “When I saw (third base coach Ron Wotus) waving me, I knew it was probably going to be close.”
The Giants swept the two-game series with the Diamondbacks, hitting five home runs in the process, and have a four-game lead in the National League West going into their fourgame set with the Colorado Rockies that starts tonight.
“The way our offense can put pressure on other teams, we feel like if we can keep it close, we feel like we’ve got a shot at any point in the game,” Posey said.
Posey’s career power numbers have typically dipped a bit in the month of August.
In 908 career games from March/april to July over 10-plus seasons, Posey’s hit a combined 112 homers and his slugging percentage has hovered between .456 and .484. In 224 career games in August, though, he’s hit only 19 homers with a slugging percentage of .432.
“Catching is a pretty demanding position,” Crawford said, “so it’s not surprising to ever see speed or maybe power drop a little bit.”
Rest, in Posey’s case, looks like a real weapon.
“The work that he’s done in the cage to prepare for the pitchers that we face on a nightly basis (helps). The mechanics of his swing are sound,” Kapler said. “It’s the mechanics, it’s the preparation, it’s the health and explosiveness that’s leading to this success.”