It was a happy flight that left Phoenix for San Francisco on Sunday night, but not necessarily because of Anthony DeSclafani’s flirtation with another complete game or the continued resurgence of key right-handed bats.
The Giants were most thrilled with the news that came from the X-ray machine at Chase Field.
Buster Posey gave the coaching staff the scare of the first half in the sixth inning when he pulled himself from the game after taking a foul tip off his glove hand, but an X-ray came back negative and Posey was diagnosed with a thumb contusion. That left his manager with one of his biggest smiles of the season as he sat down a few minutes after a 5-2 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
“You see me smiling, that’s my level of relief,” Gabe Kapler said. “My level of concern when Buster threw his glove off was pretty high, obviously. He’s pretty even and doesn’t react with that much emotion very often, so obviously we take that really seriously.”
Posey caught two warm-up pitches in front of Kapler and trainer Dave Groeschner after the foul tip. He then caught a 95-mph fastball from DeSclafani, one of the right-hander’s seven strikeouts on a dominant night, and immediately stood up and motioned that he needed to come out.
“We went out there and gave him a chance to kind of stay in the game, and obviously he’s always going to fight for that,” Kapler said. “But we thought it was best to get him out of there and get him checked out and obviously it’s good news on the X-ray.”
Kapler said he was hopeful Posey could be ready off the bench as soon as Monday afternoon against the St. Louis Cardinals. That might be optimistic, and the Giants will certainly be patient.
They have made it this far in large part because of Posey, once again one of the most impactful players in the NL. Posey is one of just three Giants All-Stars, though, and the third straight win in Phoenix showed off the sum-of-all-parts makeup of this roster.
Posey had an RBI single, but Austin Slater and Darin Ruf made big contributions against a rare lefty starter, too, with Slater hitting a 467-foot homer that surpassed Saturday night’s blast.
DeSclafani took a no-hitter into the fifth and ended up one out shy of his third complete game. He paused after the game when asked what was working so well.
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“Absolutely nothing,” he said, a serious look on his face.
DeSclafani said he didn’t feel sharp at all and was surprised to look up after four and see that he had not allowed a hit. It was an honest assessment, but one that probably guaranteed Posey was not the hitter who left Chase Field in the most pain Sunday night.
That distinction would belong to the Diamondbacks hitters who had no answers for DeSclafani and fell to 1-9 against the Giants this season.
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