Kurtenbach: Peak Posey — calling up Bryce Eldridge is the ultimate Buster move

This isn’t some cynical ploy to put butts in the seats.

It’s not a Hail Mary to stave off headline irrelevancy, either.

No, ahead of a week-long road trip and amid a playoff race, the San Francisco Giants are calling up their top prospect — power-hitting first baseman Bryce Eldridge — and they’re doing it for the purest of reasons:

They think he can be the difference.

And it’s the right button to push at exactly the right time for Giants director of baseball operations and eager button-pusher Buster Posey.

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Frankly, Posey’s team shouldn’t be in the position they are. A month ago, they were spiraling, three games under .500 and more than five games back of a playoff spot.

And since Aug. 14, San Francisco has won 16 of 28 games — better than good but not elite.

Yet because the Mets, Reds, and Cardinals have done everything in their power to hand the Giants a playoff spot, they’re on the precipice of taking it.

This weekend, they had a chance to do just that. They came up woefully short with back-to-back blowout losses on Saturday and Sunday to the Dodgers. It looked as if the wind had come out of this wildly streaky and temperamental team’s sails.

A player like Eldridge could provide a pennant-winning gust.

No, this move wasn’t for the fans or the media — my fears for the last few months.

It was a move intended to send a message to the team.

And that’s become Posey’s M.O. as the man in charge.

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For all of my open lamenting about Posey’s undeniable lack of personnel experience heading into this massive role (concerns that have not been fully assuaged, I must note), he has proven to be a deft operator when it comes to managing his big league roster. He might be three years removed from being a player, but he still has a real feel for the pulse of a team.

And why waste that skill in a big-league dugout, handling pitching changes, when you can apply it to the whole operation?

When the early-season magic of this team started to fade, Posey cut consummate teammate LaMonte Wade. It was a message that no one on the roster was safe from accountability for poor play. The Giants’ clubhouse picked up what was being laid down — they started playing better with picked-up-off-the-streets Dom Smith at first base.

When that form faded, Posey and his front office went even bolder, trading for All-Star Rafael Devers from Boston. It told the Giants that the front office believed that this team had the core of what was needed to compete.

That carrot of a message didn’t work — the Giants were awful for two months — so Posey tried the stick at the trade deadline, moving key relievers Tyler Rogers and Camilo Doval and outfielder Mike Yastrzemski.

And we can’t pretend that Posey’s soft-power move of sidestepping opportunities to back Giants manager Bob Melvin in August didn’t resonate with the team. Yes, Matt Chapman, Devers, and Willy Adames all started hitting at the same time — the true key to the team’s success — but the Giants’ positive run of form that made this season enjoyable again had the gait of a team fighting to keep their manager in his job.

That only brought the team this far. After demoralizing losses to the Dodgers this weekend and with Smith injured, the opportunity was too good for Posey to pass up pressing the nuclear (power) button.

This Eldridge call-up is a no-risk, all-reward play from Posey.

Detractors will suggest that the 20-year-old’s 30 percent strikeout rate in Triple-A, where there are roughly four total good pitchers amid 30 teams, is evidence that the kid isn’t ready.

And they’re probably right.

But only six games remain on the Sacramento RiverCats’ schedule. That’s not enough time for Eldridge to fix his strikeout issues there.

Meanwhile, two weeks and 13 games remain on the big-league schedule. The Giants are a game-and-a-half back of the Mets for the final Wild Card spot in the National League.

That’s the perfect amount of time for Eldridge to make an impact.

It won’t affect his service time in any real way, but it’s enough of a runway that he can get his feet wet at the big-league level and maybe crush homers that could prove critical in a playoff race.

But if he is, indeed, not ready for the show quite yet, he’s not going to be up for a long enough period of time for him to do irrevocable harm to his long-term prospects.

It’s not as if strikeouts will be out of place on this Giants team. Devers has struck out nearly 30 percent of the time since he was acquired. Clearly, the Giants (like so many other teams) believe you can strike out all you want in the big leagues, so long as you do damage when you make contact.

And Eldridge can do some serious damage to a baseball.

His 25 home runs in the minor leagues (tops among all Giants prospects, despite missing nearly two months) say so. His to-all-fields power has created a seemingly nightly highlight on hazy cameras in Oklahoma City, Reno, Albuquerque, and Sacramento; it provided a steady knock on the Giants’ door.

Posey answered it on Sunday night and, in turn, sent his team — themselves knocking on the door to the playoffs — another message:

It’s time for one last push.