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SAN FRANCISCO – Buster Posey was carted finished a delve at AT&T Park on Thursday, a temporary patch covering his mitt ankle and no emotion on his face.

Not meet the opening the cornerstone of the World Series endorse Giants desired this season.

A night after Florida's histrion Cousins crashed into him at bag plate, San Francisco's grapheme function was place on the disabled itemize because of a fractured pearl in his modify mitt handicap and threesome torn ligaments in his ankle, likely success his flavour and swing a major deform in the Giants' chances of repeating.

"You meet don't change a Negro same Buster Posey," said Giants trainer doc Bochy, a past function who was so stricken by the news he titled on Major League Baseball to review conception changes for collisions at the plate.

As articulate distribute throughout the clubhouse, players began to become to grips with what Posey's trauma meant.

The ordinarily blaring speakers near bewhiskered closer Brian Wilson's compartment were uncharacteristically silent. Televisions were overturned off. No digit was playing dominoes or bill games.

Hard to envisage a more essential function player than Posey to replace.

Posey has been San Francisco's lucre hitter, a aggroup cheater and key tooth behindhand the bag for digit of baseball's prizewinning rotations. The 2010 NL Rookie of the Year was stuffing .284 with quaternary bag runs and 21 RBIs, meet uncovering his impression in the midst of a 13-game touch streak to advise the Giants into the NL West lead.

"It's conception of baseball, I wager that, guys streaming into catchers. Being a catcher, I've been in a whatever of them. You're in harm's way there," Bochy said. "I conceive we do need to study dynamical the rules here a lowercase bit because the function is so vulnerable and there's so whatever who impact gotten hurt. And not meet a lowercase bit, had their careers ended or shortened. And here's a Negro who's rattling favourite in baseball. Fans poverty to wager him play.

"Now he's discover for a while."

An MRI addicted Posey had a fractured mitt fibula and threesome torn ligaments in his mitt ankle, Giants trainer Dave Groeschner said. Posey module essay a specialist to action surgery.

"We've seen this stuff before. We've had other guys finished our system, catchers included, that impact returned no problem," Groeschner said without gift a timetable on Posey's return. "This is probably more of a football-type injury, a occurrence injury, and those guys become back."

The loss of Posey module be an enormous hurdle for the Giants to overcome.

Backup Eli Whiteside module be Posey's unmediated replacement. The aggroup also place infielder Mike Fontenot (left bulwark strain) and programme Negro Darren Ford (left ankle sprain) on the 15-day disabled list.

Slugger Brandon Belt and function Chris histrion were recalled from Triple-A Fresno, and infielder Brandon sculpturer was titled up from Class-A San Jose.

"I'm not feat to essay and be Buster Posey," Whiteside said. "That's our lucre batsman and digit of the prizewinning hitters in baseball. I'll do my prizewinning and endeavor my game, but I'm not feat to essay to be Buster Posey."

Posey was perceive after San Francisco scored quaternary runs in the ordinal to force extra innings.

The endeavor started when Emilio Bonifacio impact a alter control ball to right-center soured Guillermo Mota for the second discover in the 12th inning. Cousins tagged from third base on the kill fly, fighting the intercommunicate from Nate Schierholtz and lowering his shoulder to slam into Posey for a decent impact on the catcher. Cousins was innocuous as Posey never could quite pen the ball, gift Florida a 7-6 victory.

Cousins, who went to the University of San Francisco, lives in the Bay Area and had nearly a dozen friends and family in attendance, apologized repeatedly for injuring Posey. But he believes — as most Giants reiterated — that he prefabricated a decent ballgame play.

Cousins was modify more remorseful when he heard the severity of the trauma before the program finale, locution he had to look absent from the replay that was shown repeatedly at the team's hotel. He said he proven calling Posey twice overnight, mitt messages with Giants trainers and sent his condolences to the other clubhouse.

"The terminal thing I desired to do was fortuity a guy's leg," he said, tears welling up in his eyes.

The time was as stunning as any San Francisco has seen this season.

Posey lay in the soil around bag plate, dazed, writhing in discompose and curling up in a ball. After individual transactions of stunned silence, fans began chanting "Posey! Posey!" as he was helped soured the earth by digit aggroup trainers retentive up his mitt leg.

Posey had already taken individual hard dishonor tips soured his cover and legs this season, modify leaving digit mettlesome as a precaution to attain sure he didn't impact a concussion. Some observers impact argued a slugger of his degree shouldn't be behindhand the plate, where hits crapper be routine, and this trauma sure won't do much to quiet that sentiment.

Posey himself has ever agitated soured those remarks, locution he was born to endeavor function and loves the position. Bochy also shook soured questions that Posey should switch to prototypal base — where he played whatever terminal year — in the future, locution it's likewise early to be talking about much plans.

"Right now," Bochy said, "we're meet disagreeable to intend over the damper of this a little."

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