Giants’ catcher Buster Posey wasn’t healthy enough to run the bases on Friday night.
But the team’s best hitter still managed to put a scare in Rockies’ closer Greg Holland.
A night after exiting Thursday’s game with a sore ankle, Posey pinch-hit for Kelby Tomlinson in the top half of the ninth inning with the Giants hoping to mount a rally.
Against Holland, Posey never lifted the bat off of his shoulders, but he did do his job.
The former National League MVP took four straight balls as Holland put the tying run on base, never wanting to give Posey a chance to even the score.
As soon as Posey reached base, Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy lifted him for a pinch-runner, calling on Sunday’s probable starter, Ty Blach, to take over.
Though the Giants didn’t want to stress Posey on Friday, a team that has now lost 13 of its last 17 games needs his bat in the lineup, and Bochy penciled Posey in at first base on Saturday.
The Giants will sit regular starters and left-handed hitters Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford and Denard Span as they get set to take on Rockies’ rookie lefty Kyle Freeland. The last time Crawford and Span were both out of the lineup was last Sunday, when the Giants’ offense opened the floodgates against the Minnesota Twins in a 13-8 win.
Since that game, the Giants have lost four in a row, mustering just three runs over two games against Kansas City during the week before San Francisco’s pitching staff and defense let the team down in back-to-back losses to kick off a four-game set in Denver.
Back in April, Freeland threw 7.0 innings of shutout ball against San Francisco, surrendering six hits and one walk while striking out three in a Colorado victory at Coors Field.
Though Posey is back in the lineup, third baseman and All-Star candidate Eduardo Nunez is sitting for the second straight day.
Just minutes before Posey was lifted from Thursday’s ballgame following his ninth home run of the season, Nunez was removed with a tight hamstring. On Friday, Bochy told reporters in Colorado that the team was hopeful Nunez would be back in the lineup by the end of the weekend or the start of the team’s four-game set in Atlanta on Monday.
Veteran Aaron Hill will start in Nunez’s place, while righties Tomlinson and Gorkys Hernandez will fill in for Crawford and Span, respectively.
After collecting a hit for the sixth straight game, rookie left fielder Austin Slater will move up from the eighth slot in the lineup and hit fifth, protecting Posey in the cleanup spot. Over the first 11 games of Slater’s career, the Stanford product is 16-for-40 and is hitting .400.
On the mound, the Giants will turn to 13th year veteran Matt Cain, who is 3-5 with a 5.22 earned run average in 13 starts this season. Cain is making his 39th career start against the Rockies, the most by any pitcher in Major League history, and he’s fared reasonably well against Colorado over the course of his career, compiling a 3.52 ERA.
