Posey's Play at the Plate

If you didn't see it, you can watch it here. Groundball up the middle, runner coming around third, perfect throw to the plate. Bile rose to the back of my throat as if I were watching Requiem for a Dream for the first time. It certainly could have been a collision at home if both parties were willing to have that happen.

Well, it was spring training. If Posey tried to block the plate, Mitch Moreland probably would have stopped, made a squinty face, and said "Really?". But it didn't come to that. Posey took the ball in front of home plate, Moreland slid to the outside of home plate, and Posey's swipe tag missed him by a couple of inches.

There's a pretty good chance that's the closest play we'll see all year in those circumstances, where a swipe tag is the difference between a run scoring or being called out. So now we know what it's like. And it was perfect, except for the part with the run scoring. We'll probably have to see a similar play, what, four or five times this year? Maybe that's undershooting it. But every time it happens, we'll have the satisfaction of knowing that Posey isn't broken. Worthwhile exchange.