Game Wrap 5/25/2011: Marlins 7 Giants 6. Buster Posey Hurt

Well, this was definitely not the news I was hoping to wake up to! The Giants not only lost a game I thought they should have won, they lost their most important, their most indispensable player, possibly for a long time. You never know about these things, but it sure feels like the season ended for the Giants last night. Key lines:

Andres Torres- 1 for 5, 2B, BB, SB(4). BA= .276.

Freddy Sanchez- 4 for 6, 2B. Freddy was zoned in from the start lashing line drives like he does when he gets hot.

Aubrey Huff- 1 for 6. Even though Huffy drove in the tying runs with a soft single to CF, he did not have a good game at the plate snuffing out rally after rally with 3 K's. Before the tying single, I was planning to write that I don't know if I've ever seen a good veteran hitter more lost at the plate than Huff right now. I'll go ahead and write it anyway.

Buster Posey- 1 for 5. You can check out the details on sfgiants.com and Extra Baggs, but the ankle injury Buster suffered on the game ending collision at home plate appears to be serious. It' can't be a good sign that the Giants would not release the X-ray results last night and Giants spokespeople were quoted as saying "it's bad." Buster is the most irreplaceable player on the team. The fact that you can count the number of elite catchers in baseball on one hand and still have fingers left over, and Buster is one of them, tells you a replacement plan doesn't exist. The part that makes me angry is, IMO, it didn't have to happen. More on that later.

Nate Schierholtz- 2 for 5, BB. Nice game for Nate. Too bad he didn't have one more superhuman throw in him tonight.

Miguel Tejada- 2 for 5, 3 K's. You get the good and the bad with Miggy in one night.

Mike Fontenot- 0 for 2. Fonty left the game with a groin strain. Don't know how bad it is at this point and it's completely overshadowed by Buster's injury. If the Giants don't think Burriss can be an every day SS, you would think Brandon Crawford is next in line, ready or not.

Madison Bumgarner- 6 IP, 8 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 4 K's. ERA= 3.79. Bumgarner settled down and pitched a pretty good game after a monumental struggle in the first inning which ended with a DP.

Javier Lopez- 0.2 IP, 1 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 1 K. ERA= 2.55. It was obvious Lopez didn't have it tonight. He wasn't getting the LH batters out. What did Bochy think he was going to do with Gaby Sanchez and Mike Stanton, two of the hottest RH batters on the planet coming up? I know it didn't feel like it, but the Giants were still down by just 1 run and getting that one out would end the inning. Right now, Sanchez and Stanton are killing everything so it might not have made a difference, and I know you don't bring in your closer in a game you are trailing, but you've got to think Mota has a much better chance of getting that one out than Lopez at that point.

Even though it feels like they are in last place, the Giants stayed 2.5 games ahead of the Dangerous D'Backs who edged the Reeeling Rockies 2-1. The Rocks stayed 3 games behind. The Desperate Dodgers lost to the 'Stros 2-1 to stay 6.5 games back while the Pesky Padres topped the Cards 3-1 to remain 8 games back in last place.

Ryan Vogelsong tries to be the stopper today against Anibal Sanchez with the angry black cloud of Buster's injury bearing down in Giants Land like a Midwestern tornado.

Not a good day to be a Giants fan!