by Michael Duca

SAN FRANCISCO–Giants catcher Andrew Susac who was called up from Triple A Sacramento and started on Monday night in St.Louis and catcher Buster Posey got some rest until there was two outs in the ninth inning when he hit a ball within three feet of what would have been a go ahead home run.

Susac is an interesting player we always long for the guy whose not there or worry about what his absence might mean he’s really not as polished behind the plate and there hardly is anyone who is as polished behind the plate as Posey is that’s not a fair comparison to use. Susac has thrown out five of 32 base stealers and Posey’s percentage throwing out runners is up around 60 percent which is putting him in Johnny Bench or Pudge Rodriguez territory.

It’s unfair to compare anyone to Buster he maybe among the truly unique players in the game today a writer from the New York Post last year said that Buster reminds him pretty much every way possible of former and late Yankees catcher Thurmond Munson, high praise indeed. Susac will be welcomed back because he provides more of a point of attack in the line up than Giant catcher Hector Sanchez was able to do during Susac’s absence. Sanchez was demoted to Sacramento on Monday.

Posey will get to play first when Susac is in the line up and it will allow Posey to rest his legs a little bit and then the question becomes what do you do with a relatively hot Brandon Belt? You put him in leftfield and that’s not always going to workout the way you want it to. Line drives hit right at a outfielder who can get to.

Sasac who went 0-3 against the Cardinals starter Michael Wacha who won it 2-1 on Monday. The Giants secret weapons traveled from Chicago and is in Pittsburgh now. Wacha has rebounded nicely from serving up some real big home runs from last year in San Francisco and his having himself a heck of season with a 14-4 ERA 2.85 record so far.

So behind the plate Susac caught well and he was catching starter Chris Heston who pitched just over four innings and threw a lot of pitches (102) in 4.2 innings as result. That puts some pressure on the bullpen, you hear rumors that not all the pitchers are always thrilled about throwing to one catcher or another. You won’t hear about anybody saying that they don’t like to throw to Susac but a lot of people would say they would prefer to throw to Posey.

Michael Duca does the Giants podcasts each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com please listen to the podcast below