Count general manager Brian Sabean as the leader of that party. According to Andrew Baggerly of the Mercury News, Sabean sounded off on Cousins during an appearance on KNBR, calling his play "malicious" before saying he'd be fine never seeing him lace 'em up in the majors again.
“Why not be hard nosed?” Sabean said. “If I never hear from Cousins again or he never plays another game in the big leagues, I think we’ll all be happy.”As if that wasn't enough, Sabean was given a chance to walk back his comments a little bit, but instead he doubled down and suggested that the Giants could be out for payback the next time they come across the Marlins.
"You can’t be that out-and-out overly aggressive. I’ll put it as politically as I can state it: There’s no love lost and there shouldn’t be.”You'd be hard pressed to find a single person around baseball who was happy to see Posey's season end the way it did. That includes Cousins, who grew up in San Francisco as a Giants fan and was tearfully apologetic after the incident. The difficulty in regulating those types of plays is that you have two players moving at high rates of speed both trying to micro-correct within fractions of seconds and inches.
But eventually, the Giants are going to have to stop wallowing and move on. They aren't the first team to lose a star player to injury and they definitely won't be the last. Without Posey it will certainly be difficult for them to defend their World Series title, but in a division as scrambled as the National League West, they are by no means out of it. However, if they want to spend their time wondering "why us?" then it will be hard for them to accomplish anything.
It seems the GM for San Fran is a little biased here. Does he forget that his star catcher was attempting to make a tag without having the ball in his glove? So why is Posey attempting to make a tag without the ball, for the same reason Cousins is attempting to knock out the ball in the catcher's glove, its called instincts, split second decisions based on the information you have available. This GM is probably one who never knew the meaning of going balls out on the field, probably why he went into scouting and management rather than being a player himself.
ReplyDeleterandy, did you get a look at the play? whether or not posey was trying to make a tag with or without the ball, he was two feet from the plate. cousiins had a clear lane to the plate, and cousins hit posey on posey's right shoulder with his right shoulder (the opposite side from where the plate was). every time i see the play it looks to me like cousins chooses to attack posey instead of taking his clear lane to the plate. cousins could have gone "balls out" on the play, scored by easily taking what posey was giving him and he would not have ended the catcher's season.
ReplyDeleteI think the more important and perhaps valid question is this: at no other base is a baserunner allowed to plow into the defender - even the "hard slide" into 2nd base has limits and can be called interference - so why is it allowed at home plate? I think this is a legitimate question MLB can review. I am a Giants fan, have been all my life. I don't think it was a dirty play although Cousins could have slid around him, on the other hand Posey could have not blocked the plate. I believe some manager has already instructed his catchers not to block the plate.
ReplyDelete