By now, surely you’ve seen the bad news for San Francisco: standout young catcher Buster Posey suffered a left leg injury (assumed to be a broken left ankle and torn ligaments) as a result of a collision with Marlins outfielder Scott Cousins in last night’s game. The injury appears to be season ending, leaving the Giants without one of the best catchers — and players — in the game.

Even though the 24-year-old Posey hadn’t completely hit his stride yet, with a meager .389 slugging percentage, he was still productive for the Giants. His .368 on-base percentage represented a marked improvement over last season’s .351 mark, and his 113 wRC+ ranked fourth among qualified catchers. Throw in his significant defensive contributions — 15 CS against 27 SB, a solid 36% rate — and Posey’s 1.8 WAR ranks only behind Rusell Martin’s 2.0.

According to ZiPS, Posey was primed to get back to last year’s numbers, a .366 wOBA and roughly 4.0 WAR over the latter four months of the season. Replacing that kind of production is nearly impossible; it becomes even harder from the catcher position, as very few players will be available and the internal options are less than impressive. Eli Whiteside will crouch behind the dish for San Francisco today, and the Giants can only hope he can improve on his career .283 wOBA. ZiPS is not confident, projecting a .281 wOBA. Such a mark would place Whiteside marginally above replacement level over 300 or so plate appearances. Thus, it seems fair to say Posey’s injury looks to cost the Giants somewhere between three and four wins without some sort of move for a replacement catcher.

The Giants currently hold a 2.5 game lead on Arizona, a team which will likely regress, and a three game lead on their real competitor, Colorado. According to Baseball Prospectus’s playoff odds, the Giants entered today with an 86.3% chance at the playoffs, including 82.8% odds of winning the NL West. Those odds, however, assume the Giants are a .564 true winning percentage team, or just over a 91-win team. Without Posey, the Giants’ would then be closer to an 86-win true talent team, or a .531 true winning percentage team.

Even with that adjustment, the Giants project as slightly better than Colorado (.525 according to BP) going forward, largely thanks to the tremendous ability of San Francisco’s pitching staff. The Giants will remain favorites by a decent margin, but instead of winning the division 8 out of 9 times, it will be more like 5 or 6. For example, the Cardinals have a .010 expected winning percentage lead on Milwaukee and a 2.5 game lead in the division, and are division winners 66% of the time.

There is still time for the Giants to pick up a worthy replacement for Posey, but given the scarcity at the catcher position, a match may be difficult to find. In the current situation, the Colorado Rockies once again have hope, despite their horrid month of May. Luckily for San Francisco, they built up a head start with Posey. It’s enough of a head start for San Francisco to retain their position as favorites, but chances are the race in the NL West will be tight down the stretch.

It’s time for interleague play, again. Even moreso than the interminable disputes about which “style of play” is aesthetically superior, complaining about fairness of the presence/lack of the DH in away games, perhaps the most contentious debate among many fans (contentious despite the overwhelming evidence on one side) is that interleague play proves that the American League has been significantly stronger than the National League for at least a decade, no matter what this fine representative of the Best Fans in Baseball believes:

The American League’s domination of interleague for an extended period of time is good evidence for its superiority, whatever the causes of that superiority might be. However, some will point to individual players as being independent demonstrations. For example, Matt Holliday was a great hitter with the Rockies through 2008. He started the 2009 season in Oakland and “struggled” relative to what he’d done before. Some people attributed that simply to him being a product of Coors Field (sigh), but when he was traded to St. Louis, he started raking at almost the same level. It must be the league, right?

Or how about Pat Burrell, who came off a number of successful seasons in Philadelphia, signed with Tampa Bay, then bombed so badly for a season-and-a-half the Rays let him go for nothing in 2010. He then signed with San Francisco and tore the cover off the ball to help the Giants on their way to a World Series Championship.

Naturally, it is silly to argue from individual cases to a league-wide issue. However, I wondered if taking all the cases like Holliday’s and Burrell’s and putting them together might show us something about the relative strength of leagues, both now and in the past.

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“Hey, guys. Remember how I’m really good at baseball? Yeah, me too.”

This edition of One Night Only (from a super-extra-special guest host!) contains:

1. Expanded previews for two games: a matchup of aces in Boston, and a West Coast rivalry game featuring two solid young pitchers.

2. Additionally, find enclosed brief previews for three other, only slightly less titillating tilts: Atlanta at Arizona, Chicago (AL) at Cleveland, and Milwaukee at San Diego.

3. Pitcher and Team NERD scores for every one of tonight’s games.

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Bartolo Colon has taken the early lead for American League Comeback Player of the Year. Over in the National League, Ryan Vogelsong is in the middle of a nice comeback story of his own along the San Francisco Bay. Once upon a time, Vogelsong was a prospect in the Giants system after he was selected in the 5th round of the 1998 draft. He jockeyed for position in the organization before he was shipped to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2001 as part of the Jason Schmidt deal. From 2001-2006, he appeared in 103 games for Pittsburgh with mostly replacement level results.

The right-hander spent a few seasons in Japan before returning to the United States in 2010. He pitched in the Philadelphia organization last season, but did not appear in a big league game. More than a decade after his selection in the draft, Vogelsong has returned to the Giants and is contributing on the major league level.

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Two weeks ago this would have been a much tougher decision. Back then Brandon Belt, heralded 23-year-old rookie, top prospect, was busy exciting the Giants’ fan base. At that point it was tough to even think of Cody Ross, whose spring training injury opened up the spot for Belt in the first place. But now, two weeks later, the decision appears a bit more obvious. Ross figures to return tonight, meaning someone has to go. Belt, who hasn’t recorded an extra base hit since the 8th and who is currently sporting a .281 wOBA, will likely make the trip back to Fresno. That decision is fairly easy. Belt’s eventual return, though, might ride on a bigger decision down the road.

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At least Nick Punto could fly.

Today’s edition of One Night Only contains:

1. Previews of two games, with sexy, updated Team NERD scores and sexy, updated ZiPS projections.

2. Notes on a third game you shouldn’t watch.

3. A poll on what’s the most depressing thing about the current iteration of the Twins.

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There is a general consensus that Manny Ramirez went out at the absolute nadir. His exit from the game was the anti-Ted Williams — the very worst way you could leave. Thus, on the barstool of American sports, the (perhaps warranted) skewering began. The fervor reached a pitch to which Joe Posnanski returned a volley. This week, he noted that, in the debate about steroid users and the hall of fame, those in the ‘against’ category are the most impassioned. He mentioned a Cleveland Frowns post that attempted to put some fervor into the pro-Manny side, but the fact remains:

If Ramirez “deserves” an impassioned defense, then Barry Bonds deserves one more.

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The Angels and Padres hitters did not have a good time yesterday. While they both did manage to eke out some runs, they spent most of the day walking back to the dugout. The pitchers opposing them, Jeremy Hellickson and Tim Lincecum, had their best strikeout stuff, combining for 23 Ks. Yet their starts couldn’t have been much more different. In fact, it might have been Hellickson who provided the more dominant performance.

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Fifty-six years in San Francisco and one World Series title. Most Giants fans are probably set for another fifty-six years, and for some it’s time to get greedy. Unfortunately, despite some fundamental flaws that existed even during their improbable title run, the team did little over the offseason to inspire confidence. Can their mix of flawed veteran position players and elite starting pitching fuel another run?

The Starting Nine

CF Andres Torres
2B Freddy Sanchez
1B Aubrey Huff
C Buster Posey
3B Pablo Sandoval
RF Cody Ross
LF Pat Burrell / Mark DeRosa
SS Miguel Tejada

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