Giants walk-off celebration took painful turn for rookie

If you missed the conclusion of Friday’s (into Saturday) Reds-Giants game, you’re far from alone.

The two teams battled into the wee hours of the morning, exchanging scoreless innings and missed opportunities until about 3:40 a.m. ET. That’s when Buster Posey put an end to the madness, launching a walk-off home run in the 17th inning as the Giants won it 3-2.

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Naturally, a big celebration ensued as the hundreds of remaining fans and roughly the same number of seagulls watched on. But a close inspection of the celebration shows it wasn’t all that fun for every Giants player.

Rookie Christian Arroyo, who contributed to the game’s length with some stellar defense at third base, was right in the middle of the fray as Posey reached home. Then, in an instant, his joy turned to pain as he caught the left elbow of a similarly ecstatic Jeff Samardzija right in the jaw.

Watch closely. You can’t miss it.

That couldn’t have felt great then, and it probably doesn’t feel much better now. But at least Arroyo was able to get a chuckle out of it.

Arroyo will have a day to collect himself on Saturday. Manager Bruce Bochy elected to give him a day off after playing all 17 innings. He finished the game 1-for-6 with a walk.

As for Buster Posey, he’ll get Saturday off too after he caught all 17 innings. He was spotted limping around in the final inning after taking a deflection off his knee, so it’s really a wonder he was able to hit a walk-off homer. Then again, that bruise may have been all the motivation he needed to finally end it.

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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at bigleaguestew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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