Cardinals’ new version of Gas House Gang

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO – They were called the “Gas House Gang,’’ the 1934 St. Louis Cardinals, people such as Leo Durocher and Ducky Medwick, ballplayers who would just as soon knock you over as win the game. “I come to beat you,” was a Durocher warning.

The new Cardinals, the 2012 version, can still play that roughhouse style, can still barrel into an infielder to try to break up a double play and perhaps break an opponent’s bones, the way Monday night Matt Holliday crashed into the Giants’ Marco Scutaro on a slide in the first inning.

A slide that sent Scutaro, the San Francisco second baseman, out of the game eventually, a slide that angered Giants manager Bruce Bochy, a longtime baseball man who rarely seems upset about anything.

Yes, the Giants won the game before a raucous sellout crowd of 42,679 at AT&T Park. They defeated the Cards, 7-1, and so the best-of-seven National League Championship Series, which resumes Wednesday in St. Louis, is tied at a game apiece.

But Scutaro, with a sore hip where Holliday rolled into him like an offensive tackle might a linebacker, successfully breaking up a double-play attempt, is facing an MRI and could face a game or more of inactivity.

“I think they got away with an illegal slide there,’’ said Bochy, his voice tight. “The rule was changed a while back. And (Holliday) really didn’t hit the dirt until he was past the bag. Marco was behind the bag and got smoked.”

And lay there to the right of the bag for a while, then got up and in the fourth singled home two runs. After the fifth, however, Scutaro, picked up late in the season from the Rockies, was replaced by Ryan Theriot. Scutaro was seen leaving the ballpark before the final out.

“It’s a shame somebody got hurt because of this,’’ said Bochy. “And that was more of a roadblock. (Marco) got hit pretty good.”

It’s also a shame the incident came to dominate a game that in another way was dominated by Ryan Vogelsong, who went seven innings and threw 106 pitches, finally giving the Giants their first solid performance by a starter in seven postseason games.

He not only got the victory but the support of fans chanting, “Vogey, Vogey, Vogey.’’ After those same fans rocked the park with boos every time Holliday came to the plate following his first-inning take-out slide.

“We’ve got our second baseman hurt,’’ Bochy pointed out when someone sensed his irritation. “And again he was behind the bag. You’re all for playing hard, but again, hoping for good news with Marco. He got a big hit, but he was hobbling. It got to the point where he said ‘I can’t move out there,’ so we had to take him out.”

After Holliday figuratively had taken him out.

Brandon Crawford, the Giants shortstop, had fielded the ball hit by Allen Craig and thrown to Scutaro to force Holliday. “It was pretty late,” Crawford said of the slide, “but I don’t think Holliday is a dirty player.”

Asked if he were surprised by Holliday’s contact, Bradford said, “I’m surprised Scutaro got off the throw to first.” Which Craig beat. But then Vogelsong retired Yadier Molina on another grounder.

Cardinals manager Mike Matheny, as expected, defended his player. He could do nothing else. Teams are taught to support their own, right or wrong.

“I didn’t see a replay,” explained Matheny, who as Bochy is a former catcher. “But as I watched it live, it looked like it was a hard slide. It didn’t go out of the baseline to get him. We teach our guys to go hard. Play the game clean, play it hard, not try to hurt anybody. We go hard but within the rules.”

Giants fans could be kind, their team finally winning a home playoff game. Back in the seventh game of the 1934 World Series, Medwick slid hard into third baseman Marv Owen of the Detroit Tigers. The two fought, Detroit fans showered Medwick with garbage when he went to left field and the commissioner of baseball, Kennesaw Landis, ordered Medwick removed from the game.

The incident Monday night had no chance of escalating into that. Holliday, in fact, was somewhat apologetic.

“In hindsight,” he said, “I wish I had started my slide a step earlier. It was happening fast, and you’re trying to get him so he can’t turn the double play.”

He couldn’t, of course, and the crowd turned on Holliday, but as the Giants broke away the mood changed. It was back to the AT&T staples, mugging for the video screen and singing along with Journey in the eighth inning.
   
“He’s a great player,” Holliday said of Scutaro. “He’s a good guy. I was trying to keep us out of a double play.”

Cust becomes A’s designated viewer and slammer

OAKLAND -- Jack Cust isn’t much different from a lot of men who love baseball, other than the fact he can hit one over a fence. Jennifer Cust isn’t much different from a lot of wives whose husbands probably spend too much time around the game, even if it’s the game where Jack makes his living.

Cust is the Oakland Athletics’ designated hitter, if he’s not playing outfield. On Wednesday night, in the A’s 3-2 loss to Texas, Cust went 3-for-4 and then returned to his residence and watched highlights on ESPN.

Not of his game -- of the Dodgers’ game in Los Angeles.

“I slowed down Manny Ramirez’s swing,’’ Cust said, alluding to recording and playing back the sequence, “and I show it to my wife. She said, ‘Enough of this baseball stuff. You’re playing all day and then you come home and show me Manny Ramirez’s swing on TV?’ She’d had it.’’

We know what happened a few hours later to Ramirez. He was suspended for 50 games after failing a drug test. What happened to Cust not long after, Thursday afternoon, was he hit a grand slam to get the A’s rolling in their 9-4 win over the Rangers at the Coliseum.

Cust thus became the focus of journalists who wanted to know about his homer and naturally about Manny’s figurative fall. Cust wasn’t terribly enlightening about either, but that was acceptable. His requirement is to help unleash the A’s offense, and in the previous three games that hadn’t happened.

“There’s not a lot of pressure on a hitter when you have the bases loaded and nobody out,’’ said Cust, describing his at bat in the fourth. “You’re just trying to hit the ball in the air (for a sacrifice fly). I wasn’t trying to hit a home run.’’

But when he did, the dugout of an A’s team that had scored 13 runs in the previous three games combined became energized.  “You could feel the excitement,’’ said Cust after his second career slam. “It was something we hadn’t had for a while.

Not after four straight defeats -- three to open their home stand. In the warmth of the best weather by the Bay in two weeks, things suddenly become more encouraging.

Asked the obligatory question on his feelings about Ramirez, Cust said, “Well, we’ve got Alex (Rodriguez) and Manny, now, two of the best hitters who ever played (both having failed tests). People are going to have questions. You don’t know about anybody, including our favorite players when we were growing up.’’

What we know about Cust is on DH days, which means most of the time, he has his own in-game agenda. Thursday it kept him from seeing very much of teammate Trevor Cahill getting his first major league victory.

Cahill had made five starts and pitched decently in four of them, but his record was 0-2. At last he got off the schneid in a game in which Cahill didn’t walk anyone and allowed only five hits in seven innings.

“He looked good,’’ said Cust of Cahill. “But honestly I wasn’t watching him. When I’m DH I don’t watch much of the game. I just kind of watch our at bats and then go to the video room to watch my swing and how their pitcher is throwing to the other guys. Really, it kind of stinks, because I enjoy watching both sides of the game, enjoy playing defense.

“I saw some of his strikeouts, a lot of stuff. But I also didn’t see lot of stuff.’’

Cust, however, was watching when in the bottom of the fourth Matt Holliday, apparently out of the doldrums, hit a three-run homer to left.

“I was on deck,’’ said Cust. “When he hit it, I knew it was out. Then it hung up for a while, and I said, ‘Oh, oh, I hope that gets out.’ It did. I’m happy for him, because Matt has worked as hard as anybody. He’s a great teammate. You wouldn’t know he’s been struggling.’’

Holliday had been down to a .222 batting average. He’s now .233 and moving in what he believes is the proper direction.

“We’re humans, and confidence is always an issue,’’ said Holliday, a lifetime .319 hitter signed as a free agent. “But enough of us have had careers where our past indicates it’s there and eventually it’s going to come out. It’s been frustrating. You feel you’re not helping the team. But I promise you, I’ve been doing all I can.’’

Short of videotaping Manny Ramirez’s swing.

What’s happened to the A’s Matt Holliday?

OAKLAND --  And the Angels didn’t even have Vladimir Guerrero. The question is whether the Athletics have Matt Holliday.

Vlad is on the disabled list with a torn right pectoral muscle, on the well-known DL, made infamous almost hourly by the A’s.

Guerrero has been out for three weeks. He’s the Angels’ big gun, but if they miss him, you wouldn’t know it from what happened at the Mausoleum -– sorry, the Coliseum –- on Monday night.

That’s because the A’s miss Matt Holliday, who was supposed to be their main bat. Holliday was in the lineup, physically, but where is he mentally?

Everyone is entitled to a bad game or three. But this is two imperfectos in a row for Holliday, signed by Oakland a couple of months back with such great fervor and plenty of expectations.

Matt went 0-for-4 on Monday as the A’s were beaten by the Angels.  After going 0-for-7 on Sunday in that awful 15-inning, 8-7 loss at Seattle.

Meaning heading into Game 2 of the two-game series against the “We don’t want to be in Anaheim so we’ll defy geography and say we’re from Los Angeles’’ Angels, Holliday is a tidy 0-for-11.

Somebody associated with the Colorado Rockies, Holliday’s former team, intimated last weekend when the Rocks were across the Bay at AT&T that Holliday knows he’s going to traded by the A’s and doesn’t really care what’s happening at the moment.

What’s happening is a man with a .319 lifetime major league average is batting .223. Even for someone reputedly known to be a slow starter, that isn’t very good. In fact, it’s terrible.

“He had a long game (Sunday),’’ the A’s Bob Geren said of Holliday in the sort of expected defense the manager might make of a star who’s not showing much offense.

“(Monday) Saunders pitched him tough. He tied up a lot of our hitters.’’

Indeed, Joe Saunders, who allowed six hits and struck out seven, dominated the A’s. But at least catcher Kurt Suzuki, batting leadoff, homered and Orlando Cabrera delivered a couple of singles and a run. All Holliday had were a couple of foul pops, a fly to right and, in the eighth against Jose Arrendondo, a called third strike.

This game painfully recalled that awful era of the late 1970s A’s. The announced attendance was a pitiful 10,397. When a brief shower hit the area in the sixth, many in the –- dare we use the word “crowd”? -- moved back under the overhang of the second and third decks.

At the final out, 9:41 p.m., maybe 800 people remained, and every shout could be heard not only across the stadium but probably all the way to San Leandro.

Brett Anderson was the A’s starter, but if it wasn’t enough trouble facing Mike Napoli (two doubles and two singles) and Chone Figgins (three singles), Anderson had a blister on the index finger of his pitching hand, the left.

“It was worse when I threw the fastball or changeup,’’ said Anderson, who came out in the fifth after giving up all the Angels’ runs. “There wasn’t any pain. But the ball caught on the skin.’’

It’s always something with the A’s. Eric Chavez and Nomar Garciaparra on the DL. Jack Cust striking out in all four of his at bats. Anderson’s record falling to 0-3.

The A’s are last in AL West. The Angels, the favorites, next to last. “Standings are your report card,’’ conceded Angels manager Mike Scioscia, “but that’s not your focus. Each game is. If you’re getting a B in biology, are you going to try and fail your next next test?’’

The middle of the A’s lineup, Holliday included, has been failing its test. Jason Giambi, who did have a single, is batting .218; Holliday, as you know, .223; Cust, 266; Bobby Crosby, who also had two hits, .222, and Travis Buck, .182. Toss in everyone else, and the A’s are last in the American League with a combined .237 average.That means the A’s pitchers, with blisters or without, must keep the opponent virtually scoreless, a virtual impossibility.

“I don’t think that game Sunday had any effect,’’ Geren said of Monday’s loss. “We got home early enough. We bounced back. It’s just that Saunders was hitting his spots. He doesn’t seem to give away too many pitches.’’

That understood, you wonder if and when the A’s plan to give away Matt Holliday. His first month in Oakland has been less than success.