I was reading this great dude who I like to read, and he was writing last week about the Giants and getting swept in Detroit and how cold the bats were and this guy wrote the following on May 29:
“But the question remains: how will Posey react to the first losing stretch of his executive career? … it is time to see how he reacts, particularly at first base.”
Who was this prescient scribe, this horsehide Shakespeare of scribbling?
Hey oh!
Listen, when you get as many wrong as I do, you gotta pat yourself on the back when you finally get one right. Now if I just hadn’t thrown out a back muscle trying to do it.
At any rate, the Jock Blog last week posed the question of how Posey would react to the fire raging in the fan base.
He took action.
Call it the Wednesday Morning Wake Up. We were still on the air when we learned that Posey designated his former teammate LaMonte Wade, Jr. for assignment — and shuffled three spots on the roster.
Since he took that action, the Giants are a very important 2-0, notching their first two wins against the division rival Padres. The two wins broke a seven-game skid against the Friars dating back to last year, which stunk to high heaven. It may be early June, but these were big wins, sports fans — mostly for your sanity, and for mine. Each was a comeback win, and each was fueled by Buster’s new toys.
That’s the thing. Not a ton of people were clamoring for Daniel (Jet) Johnson, the pride of Vallejo’s Jesse Bethel High School, to come save a game for the big club. In fact, not a ton of people knew Daniel (Jet) Johnson, the pride of Vallejo’s Jesse Bethel High School, was even in the organization. But Buster and Zack Minasian and the crew signed him in May, promoted him Wednesday morning, and watched the kid smack two hits, swipe a bag and sprint in right-center field like Gregor Blanco in Matt Cain’s perfecto to snuff a Padre rally in the 9th. It was a star turn and essentially fueled the Giants’ five-run comeback. The dude can do nothing else the rest of the season and still be responsible for a key win.
As for the bigger news: first base.
Wade’s very public slide was tough to watch. Since the All-Star Break of last year, “Late Night” LaMonte was no more: he posted an OPS of .657 in the second half of last year, and an OPS of .546 this year. Combined, since last year’s All-Star Break, he was hitting .188 in 308 at-bats. That was enough sample size for Buster to have a “tough”, in his words, conversation with Wade. Posey admitted to us it was “pretty quick.” Not much to say, unfortunately.
Of course, everyone wants the answer at first to be Bryce Eldridge. If you follow social media, every powerful swing unleashed by the 20-year-old that results in a hit looks Bunyanesque. Of course, social media doesn’t post his swings and misses, or his work-in-progress defense at first base. It is the organization’s estimation that Eldridge isn’t ready yet.
So the answer was to snag veteran Dom Smith, who had been getting some notice in certain circles when he opted out of his minor-league deal with the Yankees after a productive first two months in Triple-A. Smith has done it on the big league level, a career .246 hitter with a career .715 OPS in 2,270 plate appearances in The Show. Looks on paper to be an ideal place-holder for Eldridge: a vet happy for a place to play, and an upgrade from Wade.
And on cue, Smith was the hero Thursday afternoon: three hits, and the two-run double that pushed the Giants past the nettlesome Pads, 3-2.
Voila.
Buster said in the dugout on Wednesday, “it’s time to go.” We asked him to elaborate on that Thursday morning, and he said: “I’m drawing on playing experience as much as anything. I think you sense certain points in the season where you need something big to happen.”
The captain asked the team to get going. The team said aye aye.
The Buster Effect, once again. On to the next crisis.