Buster Posey inching closer to season-ending hip surgery

Go ahead and scream.

Shortly after Evan Longoria hit a home run to give a Giants a 2-0 lead in the first inning of tonight’s game against the Mets, the San Francisco Chronicle’s John Shea dropped a bombshell: “Buster Posey likely to have season-ending hip surgery”.

If you’re still screaming, that’s okay. If you need to scream again, go for it. Please.

The report doesn’t say that surgery is imminent or that Buster Posey’s season is definitely over, but it’s almost impossible to pretend the news suggests anything other than those outcomes.

According to Bochy, a surgery would involve addressing the labrum and cleaning out bone spurs, and a decision on specifics would be made “really soon.”

Detailing the focus of a procedure is a specific and “a decision on specifics” suggests that the decision has largely been made (especially in light of Sabean’s comments in that article, which you can read for yourself) and the rest is all just public relations. The Giants have to figure out how to time the release of the news, how to phrase it properly, plan their contingencies, etc.

It’s glib but important to remember that taking the face of the franchise out of play for the season’s final weeks has consequences for both the Giants stakeholders and shareholders, which could have unintended consequences if the team suddenly got cavalier with those relationships.

Utilizing this single source, hip labrum surgery can be coordinated and executed in four ways: arthroscopy (an outpatient procedure), surgical hip dislocation —

A surgeon makes an incision at the side of the hip and moves aside a small part of the upper femur, or thigh bone, so that he or she can better access the hip joint. The surgeon puts the bone fragment back into place after the joint is repaired.

— and, finally, labral reconstruction. Which sounds like it’s Tommy John for the hip. Hippie John. Tommy Hip. I don’t know, I’m trying to use humor to deflect my emotions.

Then there’s Periacetabular Osteotomy, which sounds like the least likely procedure to occur as it involves hip dysplasia, which is not the issue here.

Bone spurs in the hip sounds especially painful and suggest that there will have to be a combination of procedures to fix Buster.

Finally, it was around this time in 2015 that the Nationals announced Denard Span’s season would end because of the need for hip labrum surgery. He wound up signing a three-year deal with that offseason and in January 2016 he posted this Instagram video:

My guess is that Buster Posey has never jumped over a box nor is he likely to at any point in his rehab following hip labrum surgery, but it’s good to know that if he does have the surgery in September, there’s a solid chance he’s back to it to start next season. Obviously — OBVIOUSLY— catching is totally different from averagely defending the outfield, but from a Get Back On His Feet standpoint, the situation isn’t quite so grim.

I mean, it’s grim right now. In this moment — I’m still screaming, you’re still screaming — but next year... well... not grim because of this news.

But, again, right now, in this moment, the Giants are probably shutting down Buster Posey for the rest of 2018. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.