Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
In a season that has been so much about rest, about protecting against injury, about ensuring he is healthy, it comes to this.
Buster Posey’s all-around excellence will make him play an extra game.
On Thursday the great Giants catcher was named to his seventh All-Star Game, voted in as starter for a fifth time and a part of the Midsummer Classic for the first time since 2018.
If the belief is that his year away from baseball — spending 2020 with his family and two adopted twin babies during the pandemic — has helped return him to the player he once was, it’s not fully correct. Even in his prime, Posey has never had a season like this year.
His .978 OPS entering play Thursday is 21 points higher than his career high, which was set during his MVP season in 2012. He has slugged 12 home runs in 54 games, knocking one out in 5.5 percent of plate appearances. In the campaign in which he crushed his most dingers, 2012, his 24 home runs came at a 3.9 percent-of-plate-appearances clip.
His .560 slugging percentage is the best of his career, and his .330 batting average just a touch behind his 2012 mark of .336. And, oh yeah, he is leading a pitching staff that has been the catalyst to the Giants stunningly holding on to the best record in baseball.
Posey will be the only Giants starter unless his battery mate, Kevin Gausman, gets the nod as the starting pitcher. Both Gausman and Jacob deGrom, the most dominant pitcher in the NL, are aligned to start the Sunday before the game, which would put them out of the running for pitching that day. Things could change, though.
Brandon Crawford will not be a starter, as the shortstop received 17 percent of the phase two section of fan voting. Fernando Tatis Jr. easily won, but Crawford has an excellent shot at getting a reserve spot. A combination of player ballots and the commissioner’s office determine the reserve slots. If Crawford gets the nod, it would be his third All-Star Game.
Mike Yastrzemski, who also reached the second phase of voting, got 6 percent of the vote in the NL outfield.