Tuesday wasn't the greatest day in the world for the Giants: they were handed a 9-2 beat down by the Reds and scuffled their way around the plate in the series opener.
Matt Cain gave up his first earned run of the season and, generally speaking, the Giants didn't look sharp. Oh, and they didn't appreciate Buster Posey's knees being thrown at either.
Sam LeCure threw behind Posey in the ninth inning, presumably as a response to Giants reliever Dan Otero plunking Reds star Joey Votto. Of course, as Bochy pointed out after the game, Otero's wild ball probably had more to do with him "scuffling" than it did any purported vengeance.
"We weren't trying to hit [Votto]," Bochy said, per Kevin Goheen of MLB.com. "It's not like somebody talked to him or something. [Otero] was scuffling out there. I'm sure he was nervous. That's how people get hurt."
The toss near Posey is even more disconcerting considering that Buster just spent most of the past year rehabbing from a serious knee/ankle injury that he suffered in a home-plate collision during the 2011 season. And Boch doesn't particularly appreciate the possibility of having a reliever torque Posey's knee with a fastball way out of the zone.
"It's unfortunate, but we lost our guy [Posey] for a long time last year, and [he's] getting a ball thrown at his knee cap," Bochy said.
There's a surprising amount of animosity circulating around this series for some reason. And there might be even more after Tuesday -- even though the Reds won, Posey got the last laugh on LeCure when he jacked a two-run homer after the reliever went behind his knees.
