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SAN FRANCISCO -- Oh, Buster Posey knew all about how long he had gone without a home run.Yeah, Ive had a few reminders over the last week or two, Posey said with a chuckle.All that talk about the star catchers second-half power drought was answered with one mighty swing in a September game that mattered, and his two-run shot helped the San Francisco Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals 8-2 Friday night in a matchup of playoff contenders.Posey drove in four runs and the Giants stayed four games back of the NL West-leading Los Angeles Dodgers, who won at Arizona. San Francisco maintained its one-game lead over the New York Mets for the leagues top wild card, moving three games up on the Cardinals in the wild-card standings.Left-hander Matt Moore (4-4) allowed two runs over five innings, struck out four and walked three while facing the Cardinals for the first time in his career. He won for the fourth time over five starts in his ninth outing since joining San Francisco in a trade with Tampa Bay.Posey was all smiles in the dugout after his fourth-inning drive, his first home run in 185 at-bats and exactly two months -- he last connected on July 16 at San Diego.It was a good feeling, he said.Posey also had a two-run single and followed up his four-hit game Thursday night with three more.It was great to just see him start smiling and laughing after he touched home plate, Brandon Belt said. Its kind of out of the ordinary with him. Hes pretty stone-faced most of the time. When you know what hes capable of doing and when hes had a stretch like hes had, its good to see.Belt hit a two-run double to highlight San Franciscos six-run third. Posey singled in a pair of runs that inning, when all the runs were unearned off rookie right-hander Luke Weaver (1-3).For the second straight day, Giants manager Bruce Bochy gave his team a late report time to the ballpark and the players went without batting practice. This time, it came on the heels of Thursdays 6-2 victory behind Johnny Cuetos five-hitter.A couple days off the field will serve them well, said Bochy, who is sticking with the same routine for Saturday nights game.It proved the right call again. After a demoralizing three-game sweep by San Diego earlier this week, San Francisco suddenly looks like a playoff team again. The Giants have had World Series-winning seasons in every even year this decade: 2010, `12 and `14.Weavers night was done after 2 2/3 innings and he is winless in four starts since beating Oakland on Aug. 26. He allowed five hits, struck out four and walked two.Yadier Molina drove in both runs for the Cardinals, including a bases-loaded walk in the fifth.We just have to play better, thats all there is to it, manager Mike Matheny said. The standings are the standings and we know what they are. You cant run from them, hide from them. The standings say were right there, so just keep playing the game. Thats all it is. Same as always.Denard Span hit eighth for the Giants again after his strong performance, with a two-run single among his two hits in that spot a night earlier.NINTH-INNING DELAYA fan ran on the field in the top of the ninth and a member of security who slid approaching the man had to be helped off the field with an injury.TRAINERS ROOMCardinals: OF Matt Holliday will face live pitching Saturday with the hope he still might return from a broken right thumb as St. Louis makes a playoff push. The slugger hasnt played since Aug. 11, when he was hit by a pitch in an 11-inning loss to the Cubs. He had surgery to insert a screw for the fracture. Id love to play but I cant do it at jeopardizing putting my finger in a bad situation, Holliday said. Its clearly not 100 percent. Its still fractured but theres a screw in there. Its more stable than it would be if I had not had the surgery. ... SS Aledmys Diaz returned to the lineup after being held out Thursday. He came off the disabled list Sunday after he had been sidelined since July 31 with a broken right thumb, and the medical staff and Matheny are being cautious to determine if Diaz can handle playing every day.Giants: The team activated OF Gregor Blanco from the 15-day disabled list after he missed 22 games with a right shoulder impingement. ... Bochy has been looking to rest Posey and will aim to give him a break in Sunday afternoons series finale following a night game Saturday.UP NEXTCardinals: RHP Mike Leake (9-10, 4.60 ERA), who spent the second half of last season with San Francisco, looks for his second win in seven starts since July 29.Giants: RHP Jeff Samardzija (11-10, 4.07) seeks his first victory in four starts since Aug. 26. He is 4-4 with a 4.61 ERA in 20 career outings vs. St. Louis, losing to the Cardinals on June 4. Eloy Jimenez White Sox Jersey . Detroit and Boston are deadlocked, 1-1, and Tigers manager Jim Leyland could be forgiven if he was caught rationalizing instead of dissecting how his club could blow a 5-1 lead late in Game 2. Ray Schalk Jersey .C. - The Carolina Hurricanes have placed backup goalie Anton Khudobin on injured reserve with an unspecified lower-body injury. https://www.cheapwhitesox.com/3114e-pants-rowland-jersey-white-sox.html . -- Timbers coach Caleb Porter didnt stray from his business-like approach to the season even after Portland downed the two-time defending league champion Los Angeles Galaxy to gain crucial playoff position. Red Faber Jersey . -- Yogi Ferrell orchestrates pretty much everything in Indianas offence. Kid Gleason White Sox Jersey .Y. -- Leading 3-0 with only 11:25 left, the Colorado Avalanche committed a seemingly meaningless penalty to give the New York Islanders a power play. Lets save ourselves the history lesson by starting with a few home truths.South Africa is a country healing after a history of legislated segregation, discrimination and oppression, which created a privileged white minority and a disadvantaged black (referring to all non-whites) and especially disadvantaged black African majority. Sport did not escape any of that.To right the wrongs of a past steeped in inequality, South Africa has turned to aggressive transformation as its shot at redemption. In cricket that means, for the first time in the 128-year history of the game in the country, more than half the national playing XI will have to be non-white. Cricket South Africas transformation targets for the mens team - which will be calculated as an average across all formats over the course of a season - are aimed at including six players of colour, of whom at least two must be black African.The immediate reaction was outrage. Some wondered if South Africa would become another Zimbabwe; others congratulated England and New Zealand for the gains they will make as a result of white flight. But what of the people directly affected?Those currently involved stick to the company line of understanding how important transformation is, but many former players, from Pat Symcox to Makhaya Ntini, are against the idea of fixed targets because of what it does to players, both practically and psychologically.For white players, the opportunities to become professional cricketers are diminished, which will lead to many of them seeking greener pastures in another country or choosing a different sport or career path. As a result, South African cricket will lose the talent it has produced and nurtured through what remains an excellent school and academy system. Even a country as rich in talent as South Africa cannot afford such a drain if it hopes to continue to compete with the best.For players of colour, the dangers are far greater. The word target might as well be pinned to their backs, because that is what they have become. While this policy will give them more chances than ever before, it will also cause more insecurity. These players will never know whether they are in an XI because they are good enough or because they are helping fulfil a target.There will be exceptions, of course. No one can contest that Kagiso Rabada, who holds the record for the most first-class wickets in a match in South Africa, and who took a hat-trick on ODI debut, merits his place in the South African XI. He is so worthy of his place that he should play every time South Africa do, and now because of the targets, he probably will. Rabada will not have the luxury of being managed the way other top-level bowlers are, and perhaps he will end up bowling all his overs before he turns 30. That might be the price he has to pay for being a once-in-a-generation kind of player.Many of the rest will be left to wonder whether it is through ability or for other reasons that they make and stay in a side, even those who have track records and reputations. JP Duminy is an obvious example. Although he found form in the recent Centurion Test, with his first half-century in 12 innings, his average of 32.44 is underwhelming for someone who has played at the highest level for eight years. When AB de Villiers returns to the XI, Duminy will compete with Faf du Plessis for a place. Du Plessis also had a dry spell - one fifty in 15 innings - before his hundred in the same match. Without the targets, this would create a selection conundrum, because there is little to choose between Duminy and du Plessis. With the targets, it will likely be Duminy in the XI, but then he has to carry the knowledge that his inclusion could have been influenced by criteria other than cricket.That is one dilemma but there will be others. What to do when Morne Morkel also returns to action? How to handle it if Temba Bavuma no longer merits his place? Will Simon Harmer ever get another look in or is Dane Piedt guaranteed the specialist spinners job?CSA has covered itself somewhat with the proviso that the percentages will be measured over the course of a season and across all formats. Theoretically, then, it could miss the target in Tests - of which South Africa are only due to play nine more this season - and exceed it in ODIs or T20s, the formats in which the team always have more fixtures.As things stand, since readmission South Africa have fielded more plaayers of colour in shorter formats - 43.dddddddddddd7% of T20 caps have been players of colour, and 30% of ODIs players, compared to 25% of Test players. But this creates another and perhaps more serious problem. A context-less ODI or T20 could become a farce in which all 11 players are of colour, to make up for a shortfall in Tests. What sort of message will that send to those players?There has already been an example of that. Khaya Zondo was part of South Africas limited-overs squad to India in 2015 and did not play a single game. At the time there was only a loose arrangement regarding transformation, but CSA had come under criticism for not involving enough black African players - Aaron Phangiso travelled through the 2015 World Cup without playing a game - and was trying to rectify that. It only worsened it.While South Africa were still on tour in India, a group of black cricketers sent a letter to CSA demanding to know why they were being picked for tours only to carry drinks. If we are not ready for international cricket, stop picking us, the letter said, referencing Zondo and Phangiso. CSA has never clarified whether these concerns were addressed, but if it starts manipulating which matches players are picked for, the board could receive many more such letters.Naturally, packing the limited-overs teams with players of colour will also have a consequence for white players. The likes of David Miller and Kyle Abbott are already believed to be seeking county deals and this could push them to sign faster. And they wont be the only ones. This winter alone, South African cricket lost a franchise coach, Rob Walter; a CEO, Pete de Wet; and the national teams logistics manager, Riaan Muller, to New Zealand. HD Ackerman, commentator and batting consultant, relocated to Australia. The losses of people behind the scenes - where too transformation is sought - takes place silently but has wide-ranging effects.With so few places for so many in South African cricket, levels of distrust are set to rise. One solution is to increase the number of franchises, to create more positions. Since the domestic targets were increased to six players of colour, of whom at least three must be black African, several noteworthy players have struggled to get game time as squads seek balance. Marchant de Lange is one example. He could not get into the Titans team, where Junior Dala is established, and has now moved to Knights. It is not just white players who are affected. Batsman Qaasim Adams, a coloured player, was forced to yo-yo between Titans and Lions, because he also struggled for a regular spot in a team that had to meet criteria for players both of colour and black African.The differentiation is important because the black African majority were the most affected by the exclusionary policies of the past. They deserve the most redress. Many argue the best way to accomplish that would be to continue ploughing away at the grass-roots, but that is not enough. Wide-ranging programmes from KFC Mini Cricket to academies in townships to scholarships for talented teenagers at the countrys most prestigious schools already exist, and while there can never be too many of those, the current problems with transformation have little to do with them.Recent research has shown that most black African players are lost when they begin to professionalise because of socio-economic pressures to get a job, support an extended family and find security. To combat that, more of them need to be contracted to franchises so they are available for national selection. That only became a requirement two seasons ago, which may be rushing the powers that be to fast-track some players at the expense of others. In the end, the reality is that there simply isnt space for everyone.If anyone knew how to change that, they would have tried it by now, but as things stand, South Africa is facing up to the fact that it cannot undo hundreds of years of hurt in a few decades. It cannot rewrite colonial and apartheid legacies and it also cannot pretend they dont exist, and it does not know how to put right those evils without doing wrong by someone else. As one senior administrator puts it, Maybe this will just have to be the sacrifice generation. What happens when we realise they have sacrificed too much? ' ' '