© Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports
Buster Posey hasn’t played in a baseball game since July 4, missing an All-Star Game in the process, and that won’t change Friday night in the Show Me State.
Giants manager Gabe Kapler will put Curt Casali behind the dish to start the second half of San Francisco’s 2021 campaign in St. Louis. Posey, still battling the bone bruise he suffered from a Daulton Varsho foul tip, will start the road trip on the bench.
Kapler joined the Murph & Mac show Friday morning and gave an update on the plan going forward for Posey.
“(The plan is) to check in with him on a daily basis. He’s really close,” Kapler said. “It’s just one of those things where you don’t want to put him out there too early. Both for his long-term health, and also for what’s best for the Giants. We want him very comfortable back behind the dish catching.
“It’s challenging. A major league game, there’s a lot of pitches thrown. We just want to make sure, because we’re thinking about the big picture here, that he’s fully capable of getting through a game feeling good and at his best. So we’re just going to monitor and when he’s ready to start, which I think is very close, he’s going to be right back in the line-up.”
Kapler declined to comment on the possibility of Posey coming off the bench in a pinch-hitting situation, but said he did take come swings on Thursday.
“He’s capable of gripping a bat, took a nice couple of rounds of BP in the cage yesterday. He caught a bullpen yesterday. Like I said he’s getting closer, but again, we’re thinking about not just tonight’s game, tomorrow’s game, but the entirety of this season, and we want him at his best.”
First pitch for Friday’s game in St. Louis is schedule for 5:15 p.m., with coverage on The Leader starting at 4:15.