Heart of the matter: Giants not hitting NLCS GAME 6 / Cardinals at Giants, 4:30 p.m. Sunday Channel: 2 Channel: 40

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There must be an edict at ESPN that its on-air talent is not allowed to watch games on Fox. That is the only plausible explanation for the studio highlight host saying Friday night that Buster Posey is the "A-Rod" of the Giants because he has three hits in 18 National League Championship Series at-bats.

Mr. Host must not have a watched a single inning of the Giants-Cardinals series, which resumes with Game 6 at AT&T Park on Sunday.

Here is the difference: Pitchers were firing fastballs at Alex Rodriguez because his bat is too slow to hit these challenge pitches. In contrast, the Cardinals have adopted what the St. Louis Post-Dispatch termed an ABB plan.

Anybody But Buster.

Which should sound familiar to those who remember Anybody But Bonds.

Buster Posey walked back to the dugout after striking out to end the 7th inning. The San Francisco Giants lost 6-4 to the St. Louis Cardinals in the first game of the league championship series Sunday Octboer 14, 2012 at AT&T park. less Buster Posey walked back to the dugout after striking out to end the 7th inning. The San Francisco Giants lost 6-4 to the St. Louis Cardinals in the first game of the league championship series Sunday Octboer ... more Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Heart of the matter: Giants not hitting 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

St. Louis pitchers are playing keep-away with the NL batting champ for the same reason cats clean their own backs with their tongues - because they can.

Why throw Posey a hittable pitch when Hunter Pence batting behind him has two hits in 19 at-bats in the series?

"It's not anything against Pence or whoever is hitting behind (Posey), but c'mon," Game 3 winner and potential Game 7 starter Kyle Lohse told the St. Louis paper. "When I don't have my best stuff, that's just a guy I'm not going to make a mistake to. I can't live with a mistake going to that guy. You kind of move on and try to get the next guy."

Which points to one of the Giants' biggest issues in this postseason. They are not getting much from the next guy, or the guy after that, or the guy after that.

They are batting .237 in the series with a .660 OPS. They have scored 20 runs, 12 in their two wins and eight in the three losses.

A low OPS is no crime in the playoffs because the pitching is so good. The Giants won the 2010 World Series with an almost identical .666 OPS in that postseason. But they pitched a lot better.

The Giants' biggest hole this time has been the middle of their lineup.

Their 3-through-6 hitters, Pablo Sandoval, Posey, Pence, Brandon Belt and Hector Sanchez (for one game in place of Belt) are 14-for-77, a .182 average. That is not a good ingredient for an October stew.

Sandoval is showing signs of a heat-up. He has six of the 14 hits from the 3, 4, 5 and 6 spots, including home runs in consecutive games. His Game 4 homer came in garbage time against middle reliever Fernando Salas, but he hit his Game 5 blast Friday night against setup man Mitchell Boggs to put the Cardinals out of grand-slam range. It was important.

Posey's struggles are not difficult to explain. He admitted he is swinging at pitches out of the strike zone, which is pretty much all he gets, hoping to spark a rally. That is precisely what manager Bruce Bochy does not want him to do. Bochy prefers that Posey take his walks (he has three in the NLCS) and hope the hitters behind him find a way to drive him in.

"We can't put this all on Buster," Bochy said. "That's a lot to carry or a lot to ask of him when they're really not giving him a lot to hit. It's going to be up to all the lineup to do something to contribute."

Pence also has expanded his zone, which is Sasquatch-sized to begin with, and is struggling to make solid contact. Belt has fallen into another funk in which he is swinging at pitches he should take and taking pitches he should be attacking.

Given all that, the Giants have done well to remain one of the three teams still playing, a testament to the guts of starters Ryan Vogelsong and Barry Zito, and the offense hitting enough not to waste two excellent pitching performances.

As often happens in the postseason, the bigger hits are coming from outside the middle of the order. Marco Scutaro is 9-for-21 in the NLCS, Angel Pagan 6-for-23. Brandon Crawford is 4-for-17 but shares the team RBI lead at four with Sandoval.

"Crawford doesn't get enough credit for the at-bats he's had," Pence said.

The key for the Giants in Game 6 and a potential Game 7 is to get more shutdown pitching from Vogelsong and Matt Cain.

But their uphill climb to complete another three-win comeback and reach the World Series would be a lot less strenuous if the guys who are paid to drive in runs could make the Cardinals pay for their Anybody But Buster strategy.

Not exactly cleaning up NLCS stats for the three players who are often 3-4-5 in the lineup: Name H AB AVG HR RBI SO Pablo Sandoval 6 21 .286 2 4 4 Buster Posey 3 18 .167 0 0 5 Hunter Pence 2 19 .105 1 1 3 Totals 11 58 .190 3 5 12