After loss, Posey says surgery next
RANGERS 7, GIANTS 6
A fog infused with brush-fire smoke hung over China Basin, as Buster Posey’s impending hip surgery hovered over the proceedings and the crowd filed into AT&T Park to see the Giants face Texas in their first home game since they effectively pulled the plug on 2018.
All of this punctured a little air out of Friday night’s Players Weekend opener, with all the nickname-adorned jerseys and Batman shoes and Day-Glo sleeves.
But none of that sucked the oxygen from the fans faster than seeing the Giants blow the last of a 6-0 lead when Gold Glove second baseman Joe Panik booted a Shin-Soo Choo grounder that should have ended the game and Rougned Odor lined Will Smith’s next pitch into McCovey Cove to tie the game.
The final details of the Giants’ 7-6 loss were
even more hideous. With two outs in the 10th, Sam Dyson threw eight straight balls to walk Ronald Guzman and Robinson Chirinos, the latter forcing home the winning run.
That might have been the final game that Buster Posey will play until 2019.
Posey announced after the game that he will undergo season-ending surgery Monday in Vail, Colo., to repair the labrum and remove bone spurs in his right hip. Posey was told by head athletic trainer Dave Groeschner that recovery time is six to eight months. Posey hopes to be in the squat on Opening Day 2019, which is seven months away.
“From everything I’ve researched and heard, the outcome in general is pretty good and I’ll be able to get back the range in my hip that’s vital for hitting and squatting,” Posey said.
Posey said he was not sure if he would play Saturday after catching 10 innings in perhaps the team’s worst loss of the year.
Adding insult to injury, the former Rangers closer Dyson lost to former Giants setup man Cory Gearrin, who provided five key outs.
The Giants, who rarely are booed at home, were booed.
Texas’ winning rally included a popup single to short right that Panik could not reach after a long run.
Posey drove in one of six runs against Rangers starter Drew Hutchison with an RBI single. He also walked, scored a run and ran first to third on a single to show he means it when he says he still can play hurt.
Andrew McCutchen, another player San Francisco fans might not see for long, homered to start a four-run first inning and stole two bases, living up to his uniform nickname of “Zoom.”
Dereck Rodriguez, the Giants’ best 2018 story, returned from the mild hamstring injury that he sustained during the Nick Hundley-Yasiel Puig brawl in L.A. and got an ill-deserved no-decision.
Rodriguez opened with four hitless innings on his way to six strong. Even the two runs he allowed, on a fifth-inning flyball single by Choo, might have been caught by a more experienced left fielder than Alen Hanson.
Joey Gallo provided Texas’ third and fourth runs with a homer off Reyes Moronta in the seventh and a two-out, brokenbat single off Mark Melancon in the eighth. Gallo injured himself on the swing and had to leave.
The Giants had a shot to blow a 6-4 game apart in the eighth when they loaded the bases with one out, but Gearrin came on to strike out Brandon Belt and Evan Longoria to strand all the runners.
Posey was one of six Giants who reached base as the Giants batted around and scored four in the first inning.
McCutchen hit his second game-opening homer of the year before Panik singled and Hutchison walked Posey and Belt to load the bases. All scored, on a Longoria infield hit and sacrifice flies by Brandon Crawford and Hanson.