Is the 2011 Giants Season Over?

Short answer? No, but for fun, lets give a longer more in-depth answer.

First of all I want to touch on Home Plate collisions in Baseball. Watching Sports Science on ESPN, the hit a catcher takes on a Home Plate collision comes at a force a QB takes on a blind side hit. In football, QB's wear pads that can absorb up to 40% of the hit, in Baseball? Nothing even close to that. This is something MLB should have corrected a LONG time ago.

Mychael Urban of CSN Bay Area tweeted "@MUrbanCSN: Oh my god. Enuf sniveling about the hit! It was clean! Change the rules? What, make them wear a tutu? Stop it. It's big-league ball. W/ risks" Really? There isn't a better way to do it then to say, "OK baserunner, collide with him as hard as you can to hopefully jar the ball loose". Come on now, this thought process is dumb and dangerous. Sometimes it takes a superstar player getting hurt to get a rule changed (Tom Brady come to mind?) Well now is Baseballs chance to do something about Home Plate collisions. I'm open to suggestions, I hope Bud Selig is too.

                Are Home Plate collisions really a necessary part of the game?

Now to the Giants, my team. Based on my tweets and facebook comments immediately after Posey's injury, you'd have thoughts the world crashed down on the Giants and that they may as well forfeit the season. I've had time to think it over and calm down. This season is far from over. Lets take a look at the reasons why the Giants should still be in the race for the NL West.

1. The Giants own a 2 game lead in the NL West after 49 games, and they got this lead with a team with the following hitting rankings; Runs 29th, Average 21st, OBP 24th and Slugging 23rd. Point is, the hitting can't get much worse then it has already been this year. While Posey's presence in the lineup will definitely be missed, guys like Aubrey Huff, Miguel Tejada and Cody Ross are due to get hot.
2. The Giants are getting their best hitter back very soon. Pablo Sandoval has missed the last week of April, will miss all of this month, and should be back around the 2nd week of June. The switch hitter, who was batting over .310 who even after all this time missed is tied on the team for most Home Runs. The Giants also called up prized young hitter Brandon Belt from the Minors again. Belt struggled his first time up, but having gotten more seasoning at San Jose, he is expected to have more of an impact this time around. Hitting under .200 his last time up, I'd expect him to hit between .260-.270 this time up with decent power numbers.
3. The Trade Deadline. There are 2 ways the Giants can trade for more offense, the first would be to send some prospects off to acquire a bat. Now the Giants shouldn't have a kneejerk reaction and make a panic trade. If Sabean plans to ship off top prospects, he simply cannot get a one year rental, make a smart trade and proceed from there. The second would be to trade one of the Starting Pitchers. Maybe the biggest surprise this season has been how well Ryen Vogelsong has done. Today against the Florida Marlins was another perfect example of how good a job he has done, pitching 8 innings with only 1 earned run allowed. Should he continue to be this impressive, the Giants now have some nice flexibility in their pitchers. I would then look to feel out what teams are willing to offer for the services of either Vogelsong or Jonathan Sanchez. Starting Pitchers always have huge value in the trading market and should be able to net a solid young hitter for a guy like Jonathan Sanchez.
4. Players Waived/Released CAN make a difference. The Giants may not even need to make a trade in order to add some help to the hitting. Last year they traded for Jose Guillen, but got Pat Burrell and Cody Ross for nothing. How did this work out? Burrell and Ross were much more productive and are still with the team. Is Guillen even in the Majors this year?  
5. Finally, the Giants play in the NL West, and there is just simply no team that will run away with this division. The Padres are bad, the Dodgers are a .500 team, the Diamondbacks have been playing well lately, but I don't think they can sustain this level, and are maybe an 80-85 win team. The Rockies are the biggest competition for the Giants, but they just lost their most consistent starting pitcher in Jorge De La Rosa for the season and it seems like Troy Tulowitzki is proving that he is human after all. With the pitching staff that the Giants have, even a below average type offense can be enough to win this division. 

  Cody Ross has been a solid hitter and fan favorite since being acquired off waivers

I think the one major thing the Giants have to remember is to not panic, you don't have to rush Pablo Sandoval back, you don't have to make a panic trade or do anything crazy. Sit back, remain calm and analyse the situation the team is in. This season is far from over.