Hudson and Zito took us back to the past

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — The game is one of learning to grip the ball, but in time, we’re told, baseball has the grip on us. It was true Saturday when two teams figuratively going nowhere were able to take us someplace they — and we — had been, into the past.

No pennants this year by the Bay. No playoffs. So being resourceful, as well as realistic, we rely on memories, and for two pitchers, Tim Hudson and Barry Zito, and for two teams for which each has played, or still was playing, on a glorious Saturday in early autumn that proved enough.

This might not have happened in New York or Chicago, where the supporters of one of that city’s teams find it difficult, if not impossible, to embrace anything to do with the other. But the A’s and Giants realize that for us by the Bay, there is an understanding of the big picture. A respect for the other side, especially when the guy on the other side is or has been on your side.

You know the situation, that Zito went from the A’s to the Giants and now for a brief moment is back with the A’s; how Hudson started with the A’s, along with Zito and Mark Mulder, and after years in Atlanta ended up with the Giants. And how through fate, fable and the decency of the men who manage those teams, Bob Melvin of the A’s and Bruce Bochy of the Giants, the decision was made to let the pitchers have one start against each other, a last hurrah if you will.

Neither lasted very long, Zito, age 37, just two innings — he did start the third — and Huddy, 40, only one and one-third innings, And a game harkening to pitching greatness ended up 14-10, if with a hint of the future for the Giants, Jarrett Parker becoming the first San Francisco rookie to hit three home runs in a game and the first Giants player with three homers and seven RBIs since Willie Mays in 1961.

“A crazy game,” said Hudson, meaning baseball in general and not this one in particular. “It wasn’t quite the pitchers' duel I envisioned. I came in thinking it was going to be 1-0 Giants.” Heck, it was 2-0 in the top of the first.

That’s the way sport and life go, entirely unpredictable. Except when it came to the reaction of the sellout crowd of 36,067. You knew they were going to cheer Zito and Hudson. What you didn’t know was the cheering would be so energetic and enthusiastic.

Each pitcher, after his brief but meaningful appearance, was given a call on the public address system and so each was given a standing ovation. Or two of them. Nostalgia. Enjoyment. Thanks, guys. Over the seasons you did yourselves proud, did us proud.

“It was surreal,” said Zito of the cheers — and the chants. After the burst of shouting, there was a repetitive, “Barry, Barry, Barry.”  It gave Barry chills.

“I flashed back to the last time I pitched in San Francisco,” he said, referring to 2013. He was a Giant then, beloved for his postseason performance in 2012 after being disliked for his performances in seasons prior to that.

“I couldn’t believe here I got to be on the field in an in an A’s uniform because I thought the Giants were my last time in the major leagues. It was so special. I always love this ballpark.”

He won the 2002 Cy Young Award pitching for the A’s. Then, as a free agent, he went to San Francisco for a  contract that only seemed obscenely large because he had more bad games than good ones. But it ended well.

Zito is probably done. He spent the season in the minors, then was given the opportunity for one more chance in the bigs. Hudson surely is done. He’s retiring at the end of a season, which closes in eight days. He made it through the first inning Saturday but in the second forced in two runs on walks and a third on a hit batsman. Wild is an understatement.

“Both pitchers had a lot going through their heads,” reminded Bochy. “Memories, the crowd, emotions. I’m sure it got to both of them.”

So did the ovations. The crowd was probably 60 percent A’s fans, but it was 100 percent baseball fans.

“They were awesome,” said Hudson. “I wish it could have ended up a little better, but it was a good day for everyone. I appreciate the fans. They’ve always been great here.”

Sad September song for the Giants

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — A sad September song at AT&T Park. An autumn with nothing but memories, an autumn of dreams as faded as the leaves.

Something new for the San Francisco Giants and their fans, a final week of a season that went so awkwardly wrong that on Tuesday night the Giants again had to face the pitcher who once was their savior.

Brian Wilson out there on the mound in a Dodger uniform, throwing against the Giants the crackling, snapping, unhittable balls he once threw for them. The Dodgers, the division-champion Dodgers, getting a couple of home runs and beating the Giants, 2-1. How mortifying. How depressing.

Two of Matt Cain’s pitches were driven halfway to Oakland, one by Yasiel Puig, a couple of innings after Cain presumably hit Puig intentionally, and another by Matt Kemp. And the way the Giants can’t hit — they scored only three runs in three runs against the Yankees over the weekend — that was enough.

They’re playing for pride now, and nostalgia. Barry Zito, for the last time, was to pitch Wednesday for San Francisco. A reward. A farewell. A what-the-heck, why not?

It was supposed to be Madison Bumgarner’s turn, but Giants manager Bruce Bochy was thinking of the future — and the past. MadBum will sit out the rest of this disappointing year, having pitched one inning short of 200, while Zito gets his final chance before heading into the sunset. Or onto the roster of another team.

A seven-year contract of $127 million, which became bigger than anything Zito did or couldn’t do with a baseball. A contract of hope and controversy. Boos and jibes, but through it all Zito stood tall, acted the gentleman until the end, and in 2012 helped pitched the Giants to their World Series win.

"There were a lot of things I would have liked to go better,” Zito told the San Francisco Chronicle, “but when it's all said and done, I'll always know I helped the team win a World Series. That's huge for me."

And it remains huge for Bochy and the front office. They’re bringing Zito on stage once more, a victory lap if you will in a year when victories have been rare, for Zito (4-11 record, 5.91 ERA) and the Giants (72-85 after Tuesday night).

“I wanted to see him have one more start,” said Bochy, who deals in sentiment as well as anyone in baseball. “This is the best time. He’s done a lot. We know what he did last year for us. He has done everything we asked.”

The days dwindle down to a precious few. Such poignant lyrics. It is up to the Oakland Athletics alone to play October baseball by the bay this year. The A’s came through. The Giants are through.

There was a sequence in the top of the eighth on Tuesday night that was perfectly representative of this imperfect year for the Giants. With Kemp on first for the Dodgers and two out, reliever Jean Machi struck out A.J. Ellis. Buster Posey, the MVP, dropped the ball, which happens, but his routine throw to first for the out was short of Brandon Belt, and Ellis was on first and Kemp on third with the error.        

That rarely happens. Fortunately, for the Giants, Mark Ellis grounded out.

The Giants’ defense has been terrible this season, devastating for a team that has trouble scoring runs. The middle of the order, the big guns offensively, have failed with men on base. In the three games against the Yankees and one against L.A., the Giants got four runs total.

“We’re cold right now,” affirmed Bochy, talking as if San Francisco had a few months remaining rather than only a few games. “The series in New York, we didn’t swing the bats very well either.”

Zito will pitch then depart. That’s a given. What then happens to Tim Lincecum, who has been occasionally brilliant — the no-hitter — and frequently erratic. Do the Giants re-sign him?

What they must do is sign a power hitter, presumably to play left. What they must do is somehow persuade or order Pablo Sandoval to get into shape. He will be in his contract year in 2014. Pablo has only 13 home runs — and three were game in one game.

What they absolutely must do is pick up ground balls and throw them into a glove, not into right field or center field.

Bochy, not unexpectedly, insisted Cain pitched well, and Cain did pitch well. But the slightest mistakes, the two balls hit for home runs, are critical when a team can’t get runners home — and except for a solo homer by Tony Abreu in the fifth, the Giants couldn’t get runners home.

“We couldn’t get much going,” said Bochy.

When have they ever in this 2013 season?

Zito deserved a better ending

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — He deserved a better ending. Maybe not red-carpet, but not red-faced either.

Barry Zito should have been able to walk away with a smile, with the cheers of thousands ringing in his ears. That’s the way it happens in the movies. The way it happens in reality was played out on a depressing Wednesday at AT&T Park.

The guess is that the game Zito pitched against the Boston Red Sox, the game the Giants in this what-else-can-go-wrong season would lose 12-1, was his last start for San Francisco, his farewell in a year during which neither he nor his team fared well.

Zito wasn’t very effective, not that anyone expected him to be, and the Giants, who can’t field and can’t hit, were even less so. A franchise in search of itself, and reasons for the decline, surely will try someone, anyone, other than Zito from here on out — unless injury demands otherwise.

So it is time to acknowledge the man, as opposed to the player, because Barry Zito was always a man no matter how poorly he threw or how miserably he was treated by the media or the fans.

Good times — and he knew those — or bad times, Zito was mature and in control. If not always in control of a fastball or curve.

I’ve dealt with the best and the rudest in a half century of sports journalism, athletes whose response to even the most harmless of questions could be an obscenity or a quick rush to a hiding place.  

Barry Zito took the blows. What he didn’t take was the criticism as personal. He accepted it as part of the job.

Sure he had the big salary, but that’s the nature of the beast. If you had won a Cy Young Award, as did Zito with the Athletics, and you were in demand in a seller’s market, the dollars would be there.

The Giants wanted this Barry to be a softer, more kindly face of the team than the other Barry, Bonds, so they spent and acquired him.

Zito didn’t pay off. Not until last season, 2012, when needed most.

In the playoffs, in the World Series, he pitched with guile and grace. The Giants don’t win a championship without Zito. Nothing could be more apparent.

Other than the fact his days with the Giants are numbered. They sent him to the bullpen briefly, then Wednesday, gave him the opportunity to start. “He could have come out better,” said Bruce Bochy, the San Francisco manager, who is marvelously protective. “He hung a slider...”

That was smacked into the left field seats in the second inning by Will Middlebrooks. Only 2-0 at that point, but the demons were hovering.

The night before, Tuesday, the Giants won their only game of the series from Boston, a game that in itself might not have meant much but could have been seen as a small step toward the respectability that had flown with the wind.

“The season hasn’t gone the way we hoped,” Bochy had said, as if the fact had to be verbalized. It hasn’t gone the way he hoped, the front office hoped and most of all the way the fans hoped.

“But we have some pride,” Bochy said. 

And almost out of nowhere, they had a 3-2 victory over the Red Sox at AT&T Park, because Ryan Vogelsong became the pitcher he had been — and surely has a chance to be next season — and because Brayan Villarreal walked Marco Scutaro with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth on the only four pitches he threw.

Such a disaster, the defending World Series champion Giants, with a lousy defense, a pathetic offense and pitching that at best could be called erratic.

The way everything went right in 2012 is the way almost everything has gone wrong in 2013.

Except the attendance, the Giants now with 229 consecutive regular-season sellouts. The fans keep coming because the tickets were sold and — because, as on Tuesday — they may be rewarded.

“We have a huge fan base,” agreed Bochy. “I was disappointed in the way we played Monday night (losing 7-0).”

He was even more disappointed Wednesday. “We drifted mentally,” he said. “That shouldn’t happen playing a good team like Boston. We had played well the night before.”

So Zito will be gone in 2014. As will Tim Lincecum. Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner, as now, continue to be the main men of a franchise built around pitching. Vogelsong’s work Tuesday night indicates he should be No. 3. And then?

Maybe the Giants obtain another starter — without Zito or Lincecum’s salaries on the ledger, there will be room financially. More likely they go after a left fielder, someone with power.

Yet whoever is on the mound or in left, the fielding must improve. There are 30 teams in the majors. The Giants rank 29th in defense.

“It’s hard to explain,” said Bochy.

He didn’t need to explain his choice of Zito, who a month earlier had been pulled from the rotation.

“I think (Zito) has earned this,” Bochy said Tuesday. “He’s a guy who has done a lot for us. I know it’s been an up-and-down year. He’s been waiting for his turn, so he gets to go first. My hope is he goes out and throws the ball great and stays in the rotation.”

He didn’t. He won’t.

‘Pride involved’ in Giants’ win over A’s

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — The man never deals in extremes. Well, almost never. Bruce Bochy is the essence of composure. His words carry the reassurance of someone who understands the wonderful — and painful — unpredictability of baseball, a game of fortune as well as skill.
   
Yet Bochy realized, as did so many others, that his San Francisco Giants were on an edge, faced with as many questions as they had problems, faced with the secondary issue of losing dominion over the Bay Area as well as losing another game to a team unrelentingly determined to claim the territory for themselves.
    
Three in a row the Giants had dropped to the Oakland Athletics, and suddenly the fourth game, the last game on the schedule between them this season of 2013, became enormous. For the Giants.
  
“I thought (Thursday) was really critical,” Bochy conceded not long after the Giants did at last beat the A’s. “We had to find a way to win this game. There was pride involved in there.”
   
They won, 5-2, won at home, at AT&T Park, where they usually win but lost, 9-6, Wednesday night after losing Monday and Tuesday at Oakland.
  
They won because Barry Zito was able make just enough of the right pitches at the right time, after making seemingly far too many wrong ones. They won because the big hit, absent of late, a two-run double, was delivered by Brandon Belt in the sixth inning. They won because the bright sunshine and light wind of an all-too-typical late spring afternoon by the Bay caused havoc for A’s fielders.
   
They won, and then they bused to the airport for an immediate trip to St. Louis, where Friday they open a series against the Cardinals, arguably the best team in the majors — or anywhere else.
  
“And if this game had gotten away from us,” said Bochy, “it would have been a very long flight.”
    
He meant mentally, but you knew that, with a lot of doubt and confusion, maybe the Giants would be wondering what had happened, the way their fans — and there were 41,250 of them, the 195th straight sellout — would be wondering what had happened.
  
Pitching failures, injuries, illness. And losses in eight of their previous 12 games, including the three against the A’s. These were the Giants, the defending World Series champions? Yes. And no.
   
A.J. Griffin, who as Zito grew up in San Diego, pitched beautifully for Oakland. He didn’t give up a hit through three innings, gave up only one through five. “Great, hit the spots,” Bochy said of the opponent. “A great curve ball. Good command.”
  
Then the manager, a onetime catcher, made the ultimate observation of the sport, to wit, “The pitcher on the mound sets the tone.”
   
It was true for Griffin. It was no less true for Zito who, like some medieval knight trapped in a maze, kept finding the escape route.
  
In the first, the A’s had runners on second and third with nobody out. And didn’t score. In the second, they had runners on first and second with two outs and scored only a run. In the fifth, they had runners on first and second with one out and didn’t score.
  
“The key was we didn’t get down the way we had the last few games,” said Bochy. “Barry kept dodging bullets. He was amazing. He made pitches when he had to. The A’s are a tough team, a good team. We needed this game.”
  
Zito turned 35 two weeks ago. He’s been in the majors since 2000. He won a Cy Young Award, with the A’s. He’s been booed by Giants fans. He’s been cheered by Giants fans. He hardly needed anyone giving him an explanation of the game’s importance. Or his performance.
 
“Way too many walks,” said Zito. Six, to be specific, in six innings. Actually in five, because in the sixth, he retired the A’s in order for the only inning. “I was able to come up with stuff when I had to.”
   
Too many walks, very few hits, three, all to Coco Crisp. Zito, as Bochy put it, was Houdini, a magician, making base runners disappear, or at least keeping them stranded.
  
“Pitching is not always about location,” Zito reminded. It’s about speed and effectiveness and — when a batter misses a fat one — about fortune. It’s about courage, about, as the saying goes, hanging in there.
   
“This was a big series,” agreed Zito. “Big crowds in both parks. It was nice for us to take one.”
   
It was essential.
  
“These games are fun,” said Belt, the lefty who hit the lefty — reliever Hideki Okajima. “They bring a lot of energy for both clubs. We did just enough to win the ball game.”
  
Which is all that counts.

Giants' Bochy manages in every possible way

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — They call him a manager, don’t they? Bruce Bochy manages, in every possible way. Manages his players with grace and skill. Manages his own emotions with superb calm.
  
Baseball will drive a man crazy, but only if he lets it.
  
The San Francisco Giants have done things the hard way for several seasons now. “Sweet Torture,” it was labeled by TV announcer Mike Krukow. Sweet because somehow the Giants make all the gnawed nails and deep breaths worth it.
   
As they did Wednesday at AT&T.
   
The Giants couldn’t hold a two-run lead in the ninth but as normal held their composure, and then won in the 10th, beating the Phillies, 4-3, and avoiding a sweep.
  
Not what Bochy desires, but almost what Bochy has come to expect.
   
“I’m used to it,” said Bochy. He looks more grizzled every game, but after this game, after the halt of a two-game losing streak, he also looked satisfied, a twinkle in his eyes.
   
What doesn’t break a man makes him laugh, right?
    
“These guys are entertainers,” Bochy said. If he was being sarcastic, and the possibility existed, it was hard to detect.
    
“I enjoy the game.”
    
He might have enjoyed it more if Sergio Romo didn’t give up a couple of runs in the ninth, but that’s baseball. Imperfection is everywhere. If you lose 62 times during a major league season, you’ll be a winner. It helps to be philosophical, maybe even fatalistic.
    
“Sergio’s been so good,” said Bochy. Which, certainly, he wasn’t on this afternoon by the Bay, but you’re not going to hear Bochy rip his players. You’re more likely to hear him credit the opposition, as he did with the Phils. “They’ve got a good club too,” he pointed out.
  
A club that beat the Giants on Monday and Tuesday.
    
What Bochy wanted was for his starting pitcher, Barry Zito, to get deep into the game, giving an overworked bullpen a rest. Zito responded, giving up only one run in seven plus innings and even adding a run-scoring single.
   
But Philly scoring twice in the next inning, off Romo, meant for a third straight game, after the Padres, after the Dodgers, Zito was not involved in the decision, even if in a larger sense, walking none, giving up only four hits and one run, he was very involved.
  
His control was a reason the Giants never trailed. It’s considerably easier when a team isn’t always playing from behind
  
“What a job Barry did,” Bochy said with emphasis. “He was throwing strikes. We’re not clicking on offense. It’s too bad he didn’t get the win, but it was a quality start.”
   
After the squandered lead, there also was a quality finish. Buster Posey was hauled out of the dugout on what was supposed to be his day of rest and opened the bottom of the 10th with a single. Then, after moving to second on a sacrifice and third on a wild pitch, he scored the winning run on a single by Andres Torres, who also had begun the game on the bench.
  
For Torres, who was with the Mets in 2012 before returning to San Francisco this season, it was the fourth walk-off hit of his career.  It also was the Giants fifth walk-off win of the season and — time to exhale — their third in the last six games.
  
“I just tried to be aggressive,” said Torres. “I was looking for a slider. I just reacted. I think it was a fastball.”
  
Torres was buried under celebrating teammates, as was Buster Posey on Friday night and then Guillermo Quiroz on Saturday night after game-winning home runs against the Dodgers.
   
“This type of win is a confidence booster to us,” said a magnanimous Zito, “to get it done in the bottom of the 9th or 10th when the other side battles back.”
   
Zito’s performance had to be a particular boost to a franchise built on starting pitching but in the past two weeks rarely getting the starting pitching it needed.
   
Matt Cain did achieve his first win of the season Sunday, and Tim Lincecum, after a wobbly beginning, lasted seven innings on Tuesday night, if in a loss.
   
“It was important for me to be aggressive,” said Zito, “to make those guys swing their bats so I could keep my pitch count down.”
   
He met that requirement, lasting 101 pitches, the last one smacked into left for a single by Carlos Ruiz. Santiago Casilla took over for Zito but hurt his knee and two batters later was replaced by Jeremy Affeldt.
   
“We’re going to have a hiccup now and then,” said Bochy.
     
The cure for hiccups is water sipped slowly, we’re advised. Or in a game as this one, a run-scoring single by Andres Torres.
    
Entertainment? Whatever Bochy wants to call it is fine with the fans if it’s a win.

The Giants, the Team That Knew How

SAN FRANCISCO – The city that knows how. That’s the slogan of this town, the one of little cable cars and World Series titles. A little too much, perhaps. Or maybe not enough.

This is a city in love with its hills, its food, its views, its bridges, even its fog.

A city of diversity and lunacy, where a century ago a man named Norton declared himself Emperor and the hallowed Rudyard Kipling described the citizens as mad.

A city of hippies and gays and Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Bookstore. And the latest vintages from Napa.

And, now, maybe most of all, of the San Francisco Giants.

The once-again-champion San Francisco Giants.

They weren’t supposed to be there, on top of the baseball world. The Detroit Tigers were the favorites, the overwhelming choice.

The Tigers had – have – Miguel Cabrera, the first Triple Crown winner in 47 years. They had Justin Verlander, arguably the best pitcher in baseball. What they also have now are the blues.

How did it happen? The sporting mavens will spend the winter trying to explain. They’ll decide the Tigers again were burdened with too many off days between the league championship series and the World Series.

Or the baseball gods were totally on the side of the Giants, pointing out Angel Pagan’s ball, which ricocheted off third for a double, or those Tiger line drives that kept ending up in Pablo Sandoval’s glove.

The Giants, we’ll be told, caught lightning in a bottle, and if the teams played again next week, Detroit would win, instead of – how embarrassing – getting swept by a team that hit the fewest home runs in baseball during the regular season.

It’s all true, and who cares? In 2010 it was Brian Wilson closing things out in Texas. This time – with Wilson missing almost from the start of the season because of arm surgery – it was his doppelganger, Sergio Romo.

This team lost Wilson. This team lost Melky Cabrera – and for a while Guillermo Mota. Pablo Sandoval underwent surgery on a hamate bone. Freddy Sanchez never made it out of spring training. Tim Lincecum went from Cy Young winner to Mystery Man, although in the postseason some of that mystery was solved.

But it wasn’t what the Giants didn’t have, it’s what they did have. Which, as that song from the musical “Damn Yankees’’ told us, was heart. Along with some wise thinking just before the World Series by manager Bruce Bochy’s wife, Kim.

Remembering that the Bochys attended the pre-series gala in San Francisco two years ago, and the Giants won, she persuaded him, a bit superstitiously, to take her to this year’s gala, last Tuesday at the Fairmont Hotel, the one night off between the NLCS win and the start of the World Series.

Watching him for a few minutes, you sensed Bochy would rather be somewhere else, but she thought he shouldn’t change the routine from 2010. He didn’t. In the end his team didn’t.

In four games the Tigers, so powerful on offense, scored a total of six runs, three in the first game, three in the second, which the Giants won, 4-3 in 10 innings. Good pitching always will beat good hitting. The Giants’ pitching wasn’t good, it was great.

Add the 27 innings from the last three games against the Cardinals in the NLCS, a total of 64 innings, and the Giants allowed only seven runs.

“Unbelievable,” Vida Blue, the pitching great of the 1970s, said on CSN Bay Area.

“You don’t need a superstar at every position. Just tell a guy, you’re my shortstop, you’re my first baseman and go out and play.”

When you’re playing for Bruce Bochy, who treats everyone with respect, it’s easier.

“Our guys had a date with destiny,” Bochy said on postgame TV. “What made them special was they were such an unselfish group. They played for each other and the fans.”

The fans. San Francisco had its virtues, but one of them wasn’t the way it went about supporting teams. We were blasé, unemotional.   

The 49ers helped change the image. Winning five Super Bowls will get attention. Then two years ago, Giants general manager Brian Sabean, whose handiwork can be seen on the roster, said, “This is a baseball town.”

It hasn’t stopped being one. The Giants sold out every game the last two seasons. On Sunday night, an estimated 10,000 people showed up at Civic Center Plaza to watch Game 4 on a very big-screen TV.

You have to be happy for all of them, in their orange and black, in their Panda outfits – fittingly, deservingly, Sandoval was the Series MVP.

You have to be happy for Barry Zito, who stoically accepted many seasons of boos.

You have to be happy for Ryan Vogelsong, who two years ago seemed at the end of a career that was spent mostly in the minors or in Japan.

You have to be happy for San Francisco, for the whole Bay Area.  

The good guys won. Great Unexpectations.

Pablo and Zito: End of the bench to top of the world

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO – They sat side by side on the dais, heroes on a heroic night, so near to each other and so far from the pain of 2010. That was the World Series that Barry Zito didn’t even get on the roster, the World Series that Pablo Sandoval only started one day.

That Series they also were also side by side, on the end of the bench, watching their Giant teammates, supportive but surely disappointed – one not even being allowed to play, the other having misplayed himself out the lineup.

But now it’s the Series of 2012, and on a wild and historic Wednesday night by the bay, everything changed.

Sandoval rang down the echoes of the Babe, of Mr. October, of Albert Pujols, hitting three home runs.

Zito pitched elegantly and tantalizingly, keeping one of the baseball’s top offensive teams to a single run before leaving.

And the Giants, the underdogs, the team nobody east of the Sierra Nevada understands or tries to understand, clubbed the Detroit Tigers, 8-3, in Game 1 of the Series.

That the other starter, the guy for the Tigers, was Justin Verlander, arguably the best pitcher in baseball, seemed make everything perfect – for Sandoval, for Zito, for all the Giants and maybe most of all for 42,855 fans engulfed in their own gleeful bedlam.

Four in a row now for the Giants, three over St. Louis in the National League Championship Series and then the opener of the World Series. Four in a row, in which the opposition scored a total of four runs – and two of those came in the ninth inning by Detroit. Four in a row in which San Francisco scored a total of 29 runs.

Sandoval got it going, a homer with no one on to dead center in the first. Then he kept it going, a two-run home to left in the third. Then he made it go some more, another solo to center in the fifth. Each inning climaxed with a playing of that long-ago song from the days of Mays, McCovey and Cepeda, “Bye Bye, Baby.’’

“To hit three home runs,’’ said Giants manager Bruce Bochy, “that’s always a surprise. But the guy can hit. He’s got great ability to get the good part of the bat on the ball and threw out some great at-bats . . . Just a tremendous night. A night I know he’ll never forget.”

Nor will anyone else. Sandoval, the Panda, the player replaced by Juan Uribe in the 2010 Series because he was overweight and underachieving, is the first ever to hit home runs his first three at bats in a Series game.  Babe Ruth, who twice hit three, Reggie Jackson and Pujols needed to come to the plate four times. In his fourth at bat, Sandoval singled.

“Man, I still can’t believe it,” was Sandoval’s opening statement of his accomplishment, even if everyone in the place could believe it.

“When you’re a little kid, you dream of being in the World Series, but I was thinking of being in this situation, three homers one game. You have to keep focused, keep focused and playing your game.”

Sandoval had a big hit off Verlander during July’s All-Star Game, where the National League's win gave the Giants the home field advantage in the best-of-seven Series, four games if it lasts the full seven.

“For me, I just go there and don’t think too much,’’ he said. “This means a lot. In 2010 I was part of the World Series. I didn’t get a chance to play too much. I’m enjoying this World Series. I’m enjoying all my moments. You never know when it’s going to happen again.”

Sandoval is 26. Zito, 34, may have wondered it was going to happen ever. He had that $127-million contract. He struggled. The fans booed. He was an outcast. Until 2012. The Giants have won 14 consecutive games in which Barry Zito started.

“I battled in September to make the postseason roster,’’ admitted Zito, haunted by his failure two years earlier. “The last thing I would have expected was to be starting in Game 1. Just the opportunity was magical. To be able to go up against Verlander and give our team a chance to up, 1-0, and the fact that we won, it’s just kind of surreal.”

Sandoval tried to stay cool about his night, unlike his teammates.

“When he hit his third,” Zito said, “man we were just going nuts in there. We were going nuts.”

A glance at the rally-rag waving, shrieking fans proved they weren’t the only ones.

“We didn’t know at that point if it ever had been done,’’ said Zito, “and we’re just like, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ “

Or, linking Sandoval and Zito, oh, good gosh.

“We got ups and downs in our career,” Sandoval insisted. “Not every year is going to be up . . . so I see my teammate, Barry, and I’m very happy for him. He started the first game of the World Series. We were sitting down on the bench in 2010.”

Now they’re on top of the world.

SF Examiner: The mystifying Mr. Barry Zito

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

In baseball, it was pointed out correctly, if not grammatically proper, by Hall of Famer Yogi Berra: You don’t know nothing. Or did you think Barry Zito would be a savior after Tim Lincecum, Madison Bumgarner and Matt Cain would be, not disasters, but at least disappointments?

To the contrary, one thing we all know is no matter how the A’s do, and that was a brilliant 1-0 win Monday night, they can’t draw beans, not with the kicking and screaming involved in their desperate attempt to flee to San Jose.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company

SF Examiner: Snakebitten from the start, San Francisco Giants had few high points

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

What happened to the Giants? The better question is, what didn’t happen to the Giants?

From Opening Day, when they were beaten by the Los Angeles Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw — and Buster Posey was still healthy — there was a sense this year might be as frustrating as last year was elating.



Read the full story here.

Copyright 2011 SF Newspaper Company

SF Examiner: Blame game over for Zito, for now

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

Goodbye, June. Hello, Barry. The idea (blush) the Giants, figuratively had gone south when in actuality they went east across the Bay Bridge? Sorry.

Journalists, like infielders, botch easy ones. Make that E-C, as in error, columnist.

Oh ye of little faith. Oh me of little faith.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2011 SF Newspaper Company

SF Examiner: Giants' Barry Zito dodges curveballs amid constant scrutiny

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

You realize all you can be is yourself. Barry Zito said that. The world swirls about him, the debate goes on, the arguments continue. But all Barry Zito can do is be himself.

“I definitely have something to prove,” Zito conceded.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2011 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Barry Zito: Giants' Expensive Spectator

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

SAN FRANCISCO — This was another reminder about the improbability of sport. A few hours after Roy Halladay of the Phillies had his no-hitter, Barry Zito of the Giants in effect became no pitcher, removed from the playoff roster.

Everyone knew Halladay would be dominant, but no one suspected he would throw two no-hitters, including one a perfect game, in a matter of months.

Everyone believed Barry Zito would be dominant. To the contrary, he's been a disappointment. And a very expensive one, if that is of consequence.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

SF Examiner: Hitting woes leave no room for error

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

SAN FRANCISCO — So Barry Zito pitches his best game in weeks. And the Giants still lose. So Zito, Santiago Casilla, Ramon Ramirez, Javier Lopez and Sergio Romo combine for a one-hitter. And the Giants still lose. It’s going to be a long winter.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Zito Loses Command - and 1st Game

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

SAN FRANCISCO -- The money was the problem. It was what everyone thought about every time Barry Zito pitched. It was what Barry Zito thought about.

A man gets paid $126 million to pitch a baseball, and he has to pay for unmet expectations.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

SF Examiner: Zito anxious to reclaim top role

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. — The Z Man. That’s the label. At least the most positive one. Barry Zito has been called a lot of things the last three years, many of them unpleasant, which is the nature of failed expectations.

But in this, his fourth season with the Giants, who knows what to expect from Zito?

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company