There was no easy way around anything in the Buster Posey injury aftermath Thursday, just as there was no easy way around Posey in the milli-moment before impact the previous night.
Two paths diverged on the road to home plate, and Scott Cousins took the one more violent.
The result: Cousins barreled into Posey and scored, Posey suffered a fractured bone in his left leg and torn ligaments in his ankle, and the entire Giants organization reeled in consequence.
Posey's status for the rest of this season is highly questionable. So is everything about the Giants' World Series title defense.
"Right now, we're just trying to get over the shock here a little bit," manager Bruce Bochy said before the Giants' dispiriting 1-0 loss to Florida on Thursday.
The hot-button issue: Was Cousins' crash course a dirty play or merely a terrible accident?
Several Giants players re-enacted the collision with each other in the clubhouse before Thursday's game, trying to make sense of the fateful moment and figure out their proper emotions.
But the reality is that, while avoidable, Cousins' split-second decision to charge into Posey was understandable, legal and absolutely a part of the way the game has been played for decades.
A victory was on the line. Posey lined up on the first-base side of the plate but was moving left to get closer to Cousins' path.
This is what happens at home plate -- and if the team's most
Valuable player is the catcher, it can happen any time he puts his body on that line."It's part of the game," Bochy said, "(Cousins) had two paths to go. He could've gone for home plate. But he elected to try to knock the ball loose. He didn't know that Buster had dropped the ball."
Bochy was clearly not thrilled with Cousins' decision, and winced when he recalled absorbing several similar hits during his own catching career.
The solution, Bochy suggested, is a rules change: If the runner has a clear lane to the plate (that Posey initially was giving Cousins), the runner cannot blast full speed into the catcher.
"The catcher's so vulnerable, and there's so many that have gotten hurt," Bochy said. "And not just a little bit. I mean, careers ended or shortened.
"And here's a guy (Posey) that's very popular in baseball. Fans want to see him play, and now he's out for a while "...
"Sometimes a guy just makes up his mind that he's going to run into the catcher. It looked like (Cousins) had made up his mind -- that the only way he was going to score was to hit him."
The Giants' ultimate solution to this is one they do not yet want to address: At some point, maybe soon, they will have to consider moving Posey to another position.
Posey loves to catch, and he is incredibly valuable to the Giants as a top-line hitter in that crucial spot; but he's "in harm's way," as Bochy described the position.
Until then, whenever Posey is healthy, catching and gutsy enough to put himself in front of a sprinting runner, his body parts will remain in the line of fire.
"Collisions are a part of the game," said Eli Whiteside, who replaced Posey in the lineup Thursday. "And we as catchers understand that."
And if you want to craft a rule to protect the catcher if he's not blocking the plate, how do you do it?
It's very difficult to legislate for positioning -- just ask the NBA about the charge/block call.
Catchers move. The ball takes them either to the first- or third-base side. They can set up giving up the lane, then dart back right in front of the plate.
Practically, Cousins had very little time to decide to slide around Posey -- if that was possible -- or conclude that Posey's move to the left would cut him off.
How does the runner know that the lane will remain open once he arrives at the plate?
"The way I looked at it, it looked like the runner went after him," A's broadcaster Ray Fosse told the Bay Area News Group's Joe Stiglich when asked about the Posey collision.
Fosse, of course, was the victim of the most famous home-plate collision in history, when Pete Rose crashed into him during the 1970 All-Star Game.
"To me, (Posey) did everything the correct way. He caught the ball, went back to tag him, and when he went down, he's assuming (the runner) is going to slide. Then all of a sudden he's hit "... and everything goes underneath him."
Actually, Posey dropped the ball right before the crash, which prevented him from bracing for the contact. But I understand what Fosse is saying: Ideally, the catcher should not have to take such a blow.
But baseball is not an ideal sport, and when the game is in doubt, the plate is both the gray area and the impact zone.
The Giants' most essential player was in that zone Thursday, full credit to him for embracing the challenge. But when you're in there, sometimes you get carried out, with X-rays and surgeries to come.
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