CSN: Bochy has tough task handling Posey

February 19, 2012, 4:53 pm

SCOTTSDALE, Az. -- The hook of the day is that Bruce Bochy has told Buster Posey not to block home plate. The sidebar is that he is going to help train Posey how to do it anyway.

?I mean, you never know, right,? the manager said in his office while his catcher was holding his first State Of The Squat address in the dugout at Scottsdale Stadium. ?I?d like him to have all those fundamentals down by the time we leave here, because you can?t always avoid those situations.?

This is one of the many dichotomies the team faces with Posey as he transitions from star in the making to invalid to star in the remaking. The Giants, and specifically Bochy, are charged with helping restore Posey while learning just how much rope to give him in that restoration, and how much to hold fast.

Posey, you see, wants to play yesterday, to see if he is his old pre-May 25 self. Bochy does, too, but he acknowledges he has never really had a case like this in his career.

?You have someone who?s very important to the club, obviously, and he?s very intelligent about the way he goes about his job and the way he handled his rehab, but he?s going through something he?s never been through before,? Bochy said. ?You want to make sure that he?s not going to try and hurry his way back, that he?s not going to jeopardize that by trying to be a warrior.?

That said, Bochy?s job on that score is easy so far. It will get more difficult.

?Right now, we?re all taking our lead from the medical people and the training staff,? he said. ?They?re in charge of how much he should play and rest, and monitoring how he?s doing, and all that. Right now, there?s no pressure on me.

?But that?s going to change once he?s been given full clearance. That?s when I?m going to be the guy who has to make those decisions about when to give him a day, or when to push him. That?s when it?s on me.?

Bochy said he doesn?t anticipate a problem keeping a governor on Posey, or convincing him that a day off here or there is a good thing. But Posey said Sunday he wants to play in the first exhibition game March 3, and Bochy is being cagier about it.

?We?re going to see where we?re at,? he said. ?He and I have talked about this, and we agreed that yeah, he wants to play right away, but we don?t have to make that decision today.?

Bochy having been a catcher has a level of simpatico with Posey that many managers wouldn?t necessarily have, but that rule isn?t universal. Indeed, some managers who are ex-catchers, like the Angels? Mike Scioscia, would almost certainly want Posey blocking the plate every chance he got because that is how Scioscia made his reputation as a player.

But Bochy?s experience is like Posey?s in that he hurt his knee early in his minor league career, and wound up missing a much greater amount of time because of the relatively primitive state of rehabilitation knowledge.

?I?d play nine innings, and I think that I was good, but then I?d be sore for two or three days,? he said. ?I had no strength in my leg, and it took a long time to get that back. Buster doesn?t have that problem.?

No, Posey?s problem is really restricted to returning to his former state as the Giants? most important hitter and the catcher the pitching staff lines up to throw to ? meaning his days off will come with a concurrent groan from that day's starter.

His secondary issue is in acknowledging that his return to catching is also the beginning of a slow, almost molecular-level move toward another position. He has already plotted out the outfield as not his cup of meat, saying, ?I?m too slow for the outfield . . . well, (Pat) Burrell played out there.?

But for the moment, he is working with the knowledge that his comeback is in the hands of many people, most notably the manager who grappled with his absence last year in what might in many ways have been the worst year of his managerial life.

Worst, in part, because Posey left a void that was never close to being filled. And now the plan is for this year to be better ? as long as Posey doesn?t decide to take the enemy gun emplacement by himself, or that Bochy realizes that Posey in the lineup is always better than him not in the lineup, and can say ?You?re off today? when ?You?re off today? is the correct answer rather than the answer that satisfies.

Source: http://www.csnbayarea.com/blog/giants-talk/post/Bochy-to-face-tough-task-of-determining-?blockID=654278&feedID=8349

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