Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
LOS ANGELES — The games within the game typically help define who wins the game itself.
Buster Posey helped Giants pitchers bear down repeatedly, holding the Dodgers to 2-of-14 with runners in scoring position and dealing with traffic throughout Friday’s game. In the eighth inning, he was trying to elevate a pitch against Blake Treinen, whom he had entered 0-for-11 against in his career. How hard is it to get one in the air against the hard-throwing righty? “Pretty hard,” Posey said with a laugh a day after his three-run home run off Treinen gave the Giants a brief three-run lead.
But maybe the most fascinating meta game involved a rambunctious group of Dodgers fans.
After Posey rounded the bases for the 150th time in his major league career, he touched home plate and glided toward the dugout but flashed a pearly white smile that he does not show off often on the field. To whom was it directed?
“I just was having some fun with a group of fans that were close by,” Posey said with another smile on Saturday, before the Giants played the third game in a four-game series at Dodger Stadium.
He was asked if he was being heckled.
“It’s Dodger Stadium,” he said simply. “I’ll let you surmise.”
pov: you’re on deck with Buster at the dish in a huge spot. pic.twitter.com/hG9vVYWbiJ
— SFGiants (@SFGiants) May 29, 2021
The particulars of the fan engagement are hazy, but it must have risen to an extraordinary degree for the 12-year pro to play along. Posey might not laugh a lot on the field, but he did laugh last.
His 10th home run of the season came on a 1-0, 96-mph sinker against a strikeout and groundball pitcher who has the 32nd best groundball rate in baseball, at 54.5 percent. Treinen keeps balls close to the ground and limits home runs, and he had limited Posey for his whole career. But Posey got underneath one, before the Giants watched Austin Barnes’ homer tie it in the ninth, before LaMonte Wade Jr. and Evan Longoria RBI drives off closer Kenley Jansen made the difference in the 10th.
“I think when you’re facing elite arms like we are almost with every pitcher on that staff, you’re just really trying to get a pitch you can handle. And when you get it, you try not to miss it,” Posey said over Zoom before he caught Logan Webb. “And those guys tend not to make too many mistakes, and we were able to capitalize that way last night.”
It must have felt nice to shake off the Dodgers for the first in five tries, LA dominating the head-to-head play even if the two are tied in the standings.
It must have felt nice considering the fans who were silenced.
“When he hit that home run, he came back and as he was approaching the dugout, I noticed that he looked up — and I don’t know if he smiled or it was kind of his version of a wink, maybe,” Gabe Kapler said. “So my initial thought was maybe that he had some family in the stands, but maybe he was having some fun with some fans.”
Provided it’s genial, Giants-Dodgers is a lot of fun.