© Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports
After one day off thanks to some delayed COVID-19 test results which Giants manager Gabe Kapler attributed to a courier/logistics issue over the holiday weekend, the Giants were back at camp on Wednesday for live pitching and hitting. The team resumed practice having received those results back from Saturday as all negative.
As seems to be the case during this unendingly bizarre second training camp, there was as least as much to note going on outside the walls of Oracle Park as what transpired inside them.
The absences and injuries
- Buster Posey, who was scheduled for an at-bat during the tail end of the Giants’ live batting practice session was not present with a personal issue. Kapler declined to go into it further: “Out of respect for Buster, out of respect for Buster’s privacy, because I think the only way to answer this question is to say this is a personal issue that Buster should address. That’s as deep as I’m going to go. Just to be clear, address at his pace. This is a personal matter that Buster is dealing with right now.”
- For the first time since training camp resumed, Brandon Belt was completely absent with a heel issue, and will be out for at least five to seven days. Kapler said it’s premature to wonder whether it will affect his availability at the start of the season: “He was feeling pretty good, we walked across the field and then up the stairs to the clubhouse together and he was feeling very fairly confident,” Kapler said. “I think more than anything else, it’s probably smart to be patient and take a look at where he is in a couple of days.”
- Hunter Pence is dealing with minor foot pain. He participated in batting practice but did not run out of the box or playing in the outfield.
- There has been no sight of Billy Hamilton nor Jarlin Garcia at the resumption of camp thus far. When asked, Kapler declined to give further details in a fairly serious manner: “I don’t have anything to report right now on on Billy and Jarlin. That’s where I’m gonna need to leave that question.”Everything else
Johnny Cueto’s honors father on Instagram
On Wednesday, Cueto posted on Instagram revealing that his father, Domingo, who he’d brought to the United States after a stroke in 2017, had died. Manager Gabe Kapler said on Monday that Cueto had been dealing with personal matters.
“With Johnny [Cueto] he’s dealt with a pretty tough hand recently with some family things that he’s had to deal with and those are the conversations I’ve had with Johnny so far,” Kapler said.
A’s exhibition games
The Giants will play the Oakland A’s in at least two exhibition games before the start of the season on July 23rd, Kapler confirmed. It will be a minimum of two games, though the teams are still working out whether a third will be in order.
Catchers-as-umpires a non-issue
The only issue that Kapler mentioned the Giants were working through was the fact that the catchers were the de facto umpires in live hitting situations, which, as you might expect, tended to favor the pitchers. Such was the case again on Wednesday, and there were a handful occasions — Brandon Crawford once turned around to Joey Bart with all the air of a veteran talking to a youngster following a low strike call to make the count 0-2 — when batters seemed a bit peeved at the calls they were getting.
Kapler laughed when asked if the calls were still an issue, and answered why the team declined to use the automatic strike zone tracker they have set up — which resides in the first few rows behind home plate, in the area where Farhan Zaidi and some scouts and other masked members of the Giants organization have looked on at practice — in order to allay any issues with that process.
“We specifically asked them to not just speak up and call out balls and strikes but to keep counts,” Kapler said. “And so they did a really nice job, and we have our portable trackman devices, behind the plate so we can criticize them for the calls they miss which is always fun.”
To be clear, Kapler said, “it’s a non-issue.”
