The Panda gives Giants what they were lacking

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — Now and then, you see one of those black-and-white panda hats. Not in abundance, like the glory days for the Panda, Pablo Sandoval, and the Giants. But often enough to serve as a reminder of the way it was. And for the guys in the clubhouse, the way it is once more.

Yes, after that 2014 season, the last World Series season in San Francisco — and there was Sandoval grabbing a foul popup near third for the final out — the Panda wanted more loving or more money or something, and not only joined the Red Sox but departed the Bay Area by tossing a few insults at the Giants organization.

But Boston was no place for Sandoval. And when the Red Sox waived him, his weight too large, his batting average too low — and were responsible for a large hunk of the large contract ($90 million) he had signed — the Giants figured it made sense to see what the man can do.

The idea turned out to be brilliant. Not only because with Evan Longoria out for several weeks with a broken hand, Sandoval is starting at third — after also playing first and, glorioski, even second base.

Not only because Sandoval is hitting .281 with six homers.

Not only because Sandoval was intentionally walked in the sixth when the Giants broke loose for five runs in their 6-5 win over Miami on Wednesday.

But maybe most importantly because Sandoval provides the spirit and camaraderie that at times was lacking as the Giants in 2017 collapsed to a 98-loss season.

“Sometimes you can’t put a value on this,” said Brandon Belt. “He’s accepted his role with humility. He keeps everything loose. He keeps you in the right frame of mind.”

Belt, feeling strong again after that emergency appendectomy a couple weeks ago, had three hits including a double in that big sixth, which — and you’ve heard this before about games at AT&T Park, where this one was played — might have been a home run at many other parks.

“We won,” said Belt, cutting to the chase. That they did, winning another series at home (they haven’t dropped one here since early April) and once more creeping to within a game of a .500 record.

They won because with Brandon Crawford away on paternity leave (he returns Thursday), and after consecutive night games Monday and Tuesday following a long trip, both Andrew McCutchen and Buster Posey getting a day off, Belt, Nick Hundley, Gorkys Hernandez and, from out of the past, Hunter Pence had notable offensive games.

They won because starter Derek Holland allowed only three runs in six innings and, this is repetitive, pitching wins. Look, the Giants didn’t score until the sixth — the Marlins’ starter, Jose Urena, was sharp — but San Francisco still only trailed 1-0.

“What a job Holland did,” said Giants manager Bruce Bochy.

Bochy also was excited by Gorkys Hernandez’s extended and successful at bat in the sixth, which lasted 13 pitches and concluded with a single to center that scored San Francisco’s fourth and fifth runs.

These Giants may not be leading the standings, but they do know to work a count. Belt set a record by standing in for 21 pitches earlier this season. Now, Hernandez goes 13. That requires a good eye and plenty of patience.

“Gorkys’ at bat was huge for us,” said Belt. “We needed those runs.”

The Giants’ leadoff batter in the first, Alen Hanson, a switch hitter, took a big lefthanded swipe at a Urena pitch, fell and injured his left knee severely enough that he had to be replaced by Kelby Tomlinson.

Another injury, after broken hands on pitches for Longoria and Madison Bumgarner and then reliever Hunter Strickland stupidly punching a wall, busting his. Cursed? Not really, said Bochy. Hanson will be sore but available. Those things happen.

So, for the Giants, do situations like Monday’s game, when ahead 4-0 in the second, they wound up losing 5-4.

Easy then to get depressed, to carry the gloom to the next game — or even for weeks. But not with the Panda around. “You need guys like that,” said Belt.

And once again, the Giants have him.

Giants’ Cactus League opener: Good pitch, no field

By Art Spander

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Once again, you’re reminded that exhibition baseball games don’t mean a thing. Except to the people playing them. Or, in the case of the Giants in the Cactus League opener of 2018, misplaying them.

As you know, and other teams — heh, heh — are gleefully aware, the Giants may not be able to hit, but as indicated Friday, they can pitch. The assumption was that they also could field. Sorry.

Which is a perfect description of San Francisco’s imperfection at times when the Milwaukee Brewers were at the plate. “I thought the pitching was good,” said manager Bruce Bochy, “but we got a little sloppy there in the middle of the game.”

Sloppy as in six errors. Sloppy as in, can’t anyone catch and throw? Final scores don’t mean much in exhibition games — the Brewers won this one, 6-5. Individual performances mean a great deal. Oops.

“We shot ourselves in the foot,” was the Bochy description.

It was cartoon ball, movie comic ball. It was the kind of ball that destroys the sort of pitching produced by the Giants, particularly Ty Blach, who didn’t allow a run the first two innings and Andrew Suarez, who didn’t allow a run the next two.

“Blach, Suarez, I thought they threw great,” said Bochy. He was in the dugout after the game, bundled but wearing Maui Jim sunglasses, maybe wishing he was somewhere else, like the Gulf Coast, where it was sunny and bright and 81 degrees, In greater Phoenix, it was dark and gloomy and, ahem, 60 degrees.

“They were sweating bullets in Florida,” he said wistfully after watching a few minutes of Tiger Woods at the Honda Classic long before the baseball game.

“When Blach missed,” said Bochy returning to the subject at hand, “he just missed. He was right on, a very impressive outing for Ty and for Suarez.

Pitching invariably is ahead of hitting early in spring training — or that’s what we’ve been taught over the decades. Yet, the theory didn’t seem to have an effect on Nick Hundley or our old pal, Pablo Sandoval. In the second, Hundley hit a homer to left, the Giants' first run, and in the sixth Sandoval, swinging left-handed, hit one to right that nearly cleared the fence behind the fence. In other words, it was way out there, maybe 450 feet.

“I was focused,” said Sandoval. “I worked in the winter.”

Pablo is a link to the Giants’ three World Series titles. He caught the ball that was the ultimate out against Kansas City in 2014. Someone wondered if the new kids, the rookies, the hopefuls, asked him about those good not-so-old days.

“Yeah,” said Sandoval. “I tell them that we are better when we have fun, when we play together and not try to do everything individually but play as a team. We had great communication.

“We have an opportunity. The pitching here is great. We have to stick to our game, focus on the little things and get better every day.”

The monster home run in the first game of the spring was reassurance. “You can face your teammates,” said Sandoval. “Otherwise they’re going to be on you all spring.”

Bochy said again Sandoval will be used as a backup at first (where he played Friday) and third and as a pinch hitter. “That was a pretty good swing by Pablo, wasn’t it?” said Bochy. “A lot of good things happened.”

Excluding the errors, certainly, inexcusable for any major league team and especially one that last season was outscored by 137 runs. When you’re scraping for runs, you better scrape up ground balls or you’ll be the worst team in the division.

Oh, right. That’s what the Giants were.

A chill in the Giants camp

By Art Spander

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — “Frost,” the sign read. “Stay off grass.” No one-liners, please, even if the warning is so very Nor Cal. Besides, this was after the Giants had worked out Wednesday in weather chilly enough to keep observers bundled, but not chilly enough to keep young ballplayers from working out.

There’s a new field at the Giants' complex, with two infields. Not exactly as impressive as, say, the White Sox and Dodgers' facility 15 miles west at Glendale, where each team has a dozen diamonds apiece. But the Giants have civilization, which counts for something.

Not as much as some power hitting and relief pitching, of course. This spring training of 2018 is one of problems and questions. For the first time in years, San Francisco enters — let’s say it — as an also-ran, a team theoretically without hope.

The Giants bottomed out in 2017. A chill. A fall from the heights. Three World Series championships in five years, certainly. But that was then. Now is a muddle.

Will Evan Longoria and Andrew McCutcheon make that much of a difference? The Dodgers and Diamondbacks are locks, aren’t they, and the Rockies should make the postseason. The Padres were seven games in front of San Francisco and just signed Eric Hosmer for millions.

It is a sobering reminder that last season the Giants not only didn’t win four out of every 10 games, they finished 40 games behind the dreaded Dodgers. That seems impossible. It wasn’t.

Maybe it’s the temperature, the high down here just 61 degrees. Maybe it’s the reality. But for the Giants, the usual optimism of spring training seems absent. How do you pick up 20 games on the Dodgers, never mind 40? And how do you feel good wearing parkas in Arizona?

Giants manager Bruce Bochy spent a good part of Wednesday on that new back field, watching prospects such as Andres Blanco and Chase D’Arnaud. “I need to put the face with the name,” said Bochy, ”although I know them all. They have it a little tougher.”

He meant tougher than the veterans, who are not to be rushed. The Giants’ exhibition season opens Friday, split squad against Milwaukee, and Buster Posey will be watching, not playing, and probably a game or two after that. Posey is approaching 31. Catchers wear down.

Pablo Sandoval already is 31 and, at times, being dropped by Boston and then returning to the Giants in July 2017, already looked worn down. He hit .225 with five home runs in 47 games with San Francisco.

Bochy said Sandoval, with a history of being overweight, is in good shape. He’ll be used at third base and first base, backing up, and at times as a bullpen catcher. Where the Panda will not be used is in the outfield.

“We were playing one of those postseason games in Taiwan, a lot of major leaguers,” said Bochy. “I put Pablo in left field. There’s a line drive in the gap. He looks to his left at the center fielder, a speed guy (it was Curtis Granderson), as if, ‘That’s your ball.’

“But everything that’s happened to Pablo over the years hasn’t fazed him.”

What happened last season certainly fazed the Giants and their fans. The AT&T Park sellout streak ended at 530 games. Madison Bumgarner fell off a dirt bike and missed a couple of months. It was as if the baseball gods were making San Francisco pay for the glory of earlier years.

When Bumgarner went down, Ty Blach stepped up. And Blach will start the Cactus League opener on Friday. The usual contention is that exhibition games don’t mean anything, that pitchers are working to get in shape.

But for a team built on pitching, a team coming off a rotten year, these exhibition games over the next month could mean a great deal. They could make everyone, players and fans, believe.

“My job,” said Bochy, “is to get these guys ready for opening day.” Being ready does count. Being successful counts much more.

S.F. Examiner: Baseball bubble isolates from football foibles

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz — We’re in a bubble down here, Sesame Street with Saguaro.

The Niners are coming unglued. Bruce Miller arrested? What next? Jim Harbaugh coaching third for the A’s?

Read the full story here.

© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner 

Lincecum leaves no-hitter without regret

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — A no-hitter? So? If there is an unwritten rule about yanking a pitcher who hasn’t allowed a hit sometime from mid-game on, well, it hasn’t been stated or tweeted to Bruce Bochy.

He manages not by tradition but by perception.

Sure, the boys (and girls) in the press box at AT&T Park on Wednesday afternoon had their questions, as undoubtedly did many in the sellout crowd of 41,186.

What the heck, little Timmy might not have been at his best, but through five he hadn’t permitted a hit by the Chicago Cubs. Shouldn’t Lincecum at least have had the chance to continue?

The answer, if not directly, was no. So Lincecum, who had the comfort of knowing there was a no-hitter from 2013 on his resume, and also on a day that ended with a 5-0 San Francisco Giants victory, had thrown 96 pitches in those five innings — and had developed a small blister — was content to leave.

Unlike current Giants broadcaster and former pitcher Mike Krukow, who in 1983 departed the mound under similar circumstances against the Cincinnati Reds.

Although Kruk had not allowed a hit through six — he had given up an unearned run on four walks — he was visited by then-Giants manager Frank Robinson, a rather demanding sort.

“You’re done,” Robinson told Krukow.

“But, but,” stammered Krukow.

“You’re done,” repeated Robinson.

Bochy was considerably more tactful and Lincecum more accepting.

“There was no chance he was going to finish,” said Bochy of Lincecum. Not when Tim had thrown nearly 100 pitches — 30 in the oh-what-might-have-happened first inning — and the game still had at least four innings to play.

“He worked so hard. It was time.”

Lincecum shrugged his consent.

“I think it’s easy,” said Lincecum of being relieved, “because I know what our bullpen is capable of.”

That would be to continue the shutout, if not the no-hitter, which was broken up with one out in the seventh by Cubs catcher John Baker, a local kid who graduated from De La Salle High in Concord and played ball at Cal.

George Kontos got the victory, because he was pitching for the Giants when they finally scored a couple of runs off Chicago’s Edwin Jackson in the sixth.

The Giants took two out of three from the Cubs, winning Tuesday and Wednesday on shutouts and extending a string of scoreless innings, by San Francisco and against Chicago, to 20.

One is reminded about the comment by the late football coach John McKay who, while at USC, told a young journalist, “Defense wins, because if the other team doesn’t score it’s impossible to lose.”

Over the last two days by the Bay, the Cubs didn’t score. 

They came close. A smash down by the line by Starlin Castro with two on was grabbed by third baseman Pablo Sandoval, who threw out Castro, and then immediately after that a line drive to right by Nate Schierholtz went just foul.

“Pablo kept everything where he it had to be,” said Lincecum. “Zero runs.”

Sandoval, who was hitting something like .161 not too long ago, had two singles Wednesday and raised his average to .246. Not All-Star stuff yet, but no longer embarrassing.

When he brought home Angel Pagan in the sixth, Sandoval had recorded an RBI for the eighth straight game, six of which were Giants victories.

“He’s in such a good zone right now,” Bochy said of Sandoval.

The Giants were 3-0 against the Twins at AT&T, then 2-1 against the Cubs. “This win made for a real nice home stand,” said a very satisfied Bochy.

San Francisco, on the road starting Thursday night at St. Louis, has the best record in baseball. At the moment. The status is fluid. Only a week ago it was the team across the Bay, the Oakland A’s, who had the best mark. Then they lost five in a row.

What could happen to the Giants out there in Middle America is unknown, but they do have a team earned run average of 3.03, second in the National League to the Atlanta Braves.

And they also have the reassurance of knowing that the motorized scooter stolen from outfielder Hunter Pence has been returned.

“We,” quipped Bochy, “can all sleep tonight.”

Zzz, zzz, zzz.

No scooter for Pence, no win for Giants

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — The day began with news of the scooter caper, a bad omen indeed. The motorized scooter on which Giants outfielder Hunter Pence travels about the immediate vicinity was taken from outside a restaurant Sunday night.

Pinched, as the British say. Stolen. John Grisham stuff. Stephen King stuff. Well, in light of the circumstances, baseball writers’ stuff. No scooter for Hunter — “kind of an extension of me,” he said — and no victory Monday afternoon for the Giants.

You think they aren’t connected? Well, why did the Giants on a Memorial Day at AT&T Park, beautiful in all regards other than the result, allow more runs in one game than they had the previous five games? Why did they mishandle the baseball like a group of 7-year-olds? Why did they get pounded — yes, pounded — by the Chicago Cubs, 8-4?

Pence had a backup scooter, which got him to the ballpark, but it was only satisfactory, not satisfying. Hunter went 0-for-4 against Jeff Samardzija.

The Giants, who had their five-game winless streak (four victories and a rain-suspended tie) stopped, are successful — when they’re successful — because of pitching. On Monday the pitching, starter Yusmeiro Petit — like Pence’s transportation, backup — and reliever David Huff didn’t quite have it.

Samardzija definitely did. The man led the majors with a 1.46 earned run average, but was stuck with a 0-4 record. He’s now 1-4, and the Giants, although still with the best record in baseball, for what that’s worth at the end of May, have a one-game losing streak.

This was Matt Cain’s day to start for San Francisco. But that hamstring injury he incurred Wednesday has not healed fully. The Giants say they are fortunate to have a pitcher such as Petit in reserve.

Yusmeiro did well enough through four innings. Then he didn’t do well at all. His replacement, Huff, did even worse. That is baseball, even for the top teams.

“I’m not sure if the pitches caught up with him,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said about Petit losing his touch, or more specifically losing his ability to retire the Cub batters.

Everything happened so suddenly in the top of the fifth, singles, a double — by Samardzija — a triple. A 3-1 Giants lead became, like that, a 4-3 Cubs lead.

“I was hoping we could hold them down,” said Bochy. “We knew with (Samardzija) it was going to be a close game. He has great stuff. It was an off day for us.”

A day that the usual sellout crowd (272 in a row if you’re interested) of more than 42,000 found hard to believe. The Giants were in front early and, hey, let’s get it over and go to dinner. Tuesday would be back to work, so time to eat, drink and celebrate.

Ah, but there before our eyes, the Cubs started smacking around Petit. “I threw the same way as in the first innings,” he said, “but I missed on two pitches.”

That would be the one Samardzija, the former Notre Dame football star, lined to right for the double and the one the next batter, leadoff man Emilio Bonifacio lined to right for a triple.

Huff wasn’t much in the sixth or seventh, and in the seventh the Giants made either two or three errors — one a wild throw by Huff on an attempted pickoff. The uncertainty arises because first they were charged with three, but after a while one of those was changed to a hit. Incidental, in a way, because the guy reached base no matter how it’s ruled.

“The defensive play goes hand in hand with the pitching,” said Bochy, a kind method of saying, “You’re right, everything was awful, but let’s not go into details.”

He did, when questioned, go into Buster Posey’s struggles at the plate. Buster struck out in the first inning, leaving him with a paltry two hits in 25 at bats. Yikes! He did single to center in the fourth (eventually scoring on Pablo Sandoval’s seventh homer of the year), and Bochy was gratified.

Hitting coach Hensley Meulens has adjusted Posey’s stance, so Buster is standing more upright. “He looked good,” said Bochy of Posey, “a lot freer, a lot more comfortable. He’s coming along.”

Buster hitting again would be a plus. So would Cain pitching again. So would the return of Hunter Pence’s motorized scooter. We wait impatiently.

Giants are struggling – and in first

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — Their No. 1 starter, Madison Bumgarner, has lost three in a row. Their No. 2 starter, Matt Cain — who used to be their No. 1 starter — hasn’t won a game this early season.  Their corner infielders can’t hit, can hardly make contact.

And yet the San Francisco Giants are in first place. If barely.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do (Tuesday),” said the man trying to make sense of this confusion, Giants manager Bruce Bochy. He meant as far as his starting lineup. In another sense, he always knows what to do, keep pushing and pulling.

Baseball is a funny sport. There are so many games. If you lose 60 of them, you’ve had a great season. But if a team loses the last game it played — as did the Giants on Monday night, losing 6-4 at AT&T Park to the San Diego Padres — then it’s as if the world has ended.

Players tread silently through the clubhouse. Reporters are doubly careful to be similarly silent, as if the slightest bit of noise, loud talking or, heavens, a chuckle would be irreverent. That the Giants came in with a four-game winning streak doesn’t help the situation one bit.

Mad Bum was 2-0 not all that long ago. Now he’s 2-3. The first two losses could be attributable to the Giants' hitters. Well, call them batters, because if they had hit, Bumgarner and San Francisco would have won each, instead of losing each, 2-1. Monday night was different.

“I didn’t have my command,” said Bumgarner. And so the Padres — mainly Rene Rivera, a catcher who was hitting .200 before the first pitch — commanded Bumgarner.

Rivera drove in the first five San Diego runs with a double in the fourth and home run in the fifth.

“He made a few more mistakes than we’re accustomed to,” said Bochy of Bumgarner. “He didn’t get the ball where he wanted.”

No pitcher is going be effective in every game. Even Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson were off occasionally. So before piling on Bumgarner, it might do well to stand clear.

The trouble is the Giants are a team built on pitching, so the temptation is to panic quickly when the pitching isn’t there.

Cain, who is scheduled to pitch Thursday, has been baffling. He’s 0-3 with a 4.35 earned run average in five starts, the worst start of his career. That perfect game seems 20 years ago, not two.

“We’re really spoiled,” was Bochy’s remark. He said it specifically about Bumgarner, but it could apply to Cain. Or Tim Lincecum. For so many years, they’ve been, if not perfect — well, Cain was — then dominant.

Now, even with the addition of Tim Hudson, who has been the star, the team ERA is 3.41. As a comparison, the Padres, who have won three of four from Los Gigantes in 2014, have a 3.17 ERA.

“Give them credit,” Bochy said of the Padres, whom he managed before the Giants. “You really have to credit one guy.”

That would be Rivera, whose five RBIs not surprisingly were a career high and the most ever by a Padre at AT&T.

Bochy, as is his style, did mention the almosts and could-haves. Buster Posey’s long shot to left in the sixth hit a few inches below the fence instead of clearing it. Michael Morse’s second of three singles could only bring Posey to third where, because third baseman Pablo Sandoval then struck out, Posey remained.

“Buster’s ball just missed going over,” said Bochy, which was true. “It was a strange night. I thought we had some good at bats at times.”

Sandoval, the third baseman, had some bad at bats.

He’s a free agent, playing as much for a big contract as for the Giants and seemingly a mess. Monday night he hit into a double play, flied out, struck out with the tying run on third and one out in the sixth and then flied out.

That left him batting — yikes — just .172.

The first baseman, Brandon Belt, has a better average, .255, but he was 0 for 3.

“Our corner guys are going to have to get on track for us to have success,” reminded Bochy, stating the obvious.

Your first and third basemen not only are supposed to hit but hit with power. Belt at least has seven home runs. Sandoval has two.

“We’ve got to get them going.”

No one had the audacity to ask how.

Giants still can’t hit

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — It’s impossible to dislike Bruce Bochy. He never belittles his players, never gives the press the slightest chance to find something wrong with the Giants.

Even when there is something wrong with the Giants.

They’re not hitting. Other than Angel Pagan (.377), Brandon Crawford (.311) and the new guy, Michael Morse (.306).

And since Pagan and Crawford didn’t start on Thursday, their day of rest after two night games and ahead of a trip to San Diego, the Giants couldn’t hit.

At least not well enough to beat the Dodgers, who won 2-1 Thursday before the usual sellout at AT&T Park after the Giants had taken the first two games of the series.

“Win two out every three,” said Madison Bumgarner, “you’re doing OK.” Absolutely. Win three out of three, you’re doing better.

Someone had the temerity to ask Bochy if this Giants team, as Giant teams of the past few years, was strictly dependent on pitching — which, of course it is.

“I don’t think so,” was Bochy’s answer. “I think we saw great pitching in this series (against the Giants).”

Is that why Hunter Pence is hitting .206, Pablo Sandoval .175?

“We’re not swinging the bats right now,” said the manager. “It’s hard to put runs on the board.”

Hasn’t it always been the last five years? A week ago Matt Cain held Colorado to one run. And lost, 1-0. Nightmares of the past, when Tim Lincecum went through the same problems.

Every game becomes agony, the bite-your-cuticles, hold-your-heart complications that Mike Krukow, the pitcher turned TV announcer, labeled “sweet torture.” 

Sweet if you win, that is. And how can the Giants win if they keep leaving men on base and Sandoval literally isn’t hitting his weight?   

Three times he came to the plate with Pence on base Thursday and never got a ball out of the infield.

In the last five games, the Giants scored a total 11 runs. That they won three of those is attributable to Sergio Romo, Jean Machi and others on the pitching staff.

Bumgarner started Thursday and made it only into the fifth before Bochy decided to change — even though Mad Bum had given up only one run. Then again, there were Dodgers on first and second when he was relieved by Yusmeiro Petit.

“The outside corner was hard to get today,” said Bochy of Bumgarner, who walked three and gave up six hits. Whether that was Bumgarner’s fault or the fault of home place ump Seth Buckminster can be debated.

Unarguable is the fact that Sandoval, the third-place hitter, is having a miserable time, most likely because this is the last year of his contract and he’s trying to make a big-dollar impression on whomever (Giants or any team) would sign him.

Bochy said that Sandoval should be thinking of hitting, that his agents are the ones who ought to be concerned with salaries and the like. It’s human nature, however, for a man to let the situation control his life.

“It’s got to be in his mind,” said a former Giants player.

Bochy said Sandoval, with only 11 hits, two homers and six RBI in 63 at bats is “really pressing. But it’s his job to play and not let anything else be a distraction.”

Dodgers starter Hyun-Jin Ryu was distracting enough for the Giants. He pitched a shutout for seven innings before leaving the game for a pinch hitter in the top of the eighth.

“We had the right guys up,” said Bochy, referring to when the Giants scored a run and had two more runners on, in the ninth against Kenley Jansen.

That would be Ehire Adrianza, who, taking over at second on a double-switch in the fifth, had three hits, one of those driving in Brandon Belt with San Francisco’s only run.

That would be Crawford, who pinch-hit for Joaquin Arias and flied out to end the game.

Bochy was not distraught. “The pitching,” he said about the series, “was really good for us.”

It had to be. Because the hitting was really bad for them.

“There’s not a guy out there I don’t have confidence in,” said Bochy, the general in support of his troops.

Statements such as that always are appreciated and admirable. A single at the proper time would be just as appreciated.

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?

Giants do everything they can to lose

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — The Giants did everything they could to lose it. And succeeded.
  
Just one of 162, certainly, and there are going to be games like this, but, full of errors and other misplays, particularly worrisome nonetheless.
   
Maybe former Giants shortstop and current Comcast TV commentator Rich Aurilia was a bit strong when, after an erratic top of the 11th inning Tuesday that made the difference in Arizona’s 6-4 win, he tweeted, “Terrible baseball in this half inning.”
    
Strong but hardly inaccurate.
   
He was referring to Andres Torres watching a ball fall for a double in that half inning, then an error by first baseman Brandon Belt on a one-bounce throw from Pablo Sandoval, then a wild pitch by Santiago Casilla.
  
“We probably should have been better there,” said Bruce Bochy, the Giants’ manager.
   
Matt Cain, the Giants’ starter, still searching for the dominance of last season, also probably should have been better there.
  
He had some bad breaks — the first batter of the game was safe on one of the three errors San Francisco would make. And then against the nemesis, Paul Goldschmidt, he made a bad pitch in the third inning, a pitch that was immediately turned into two-run homer.
  
Bochy, always the optimist, didn’t seem displeased with Cain, who went six innings without a decision and still is winless in 2013.
  
“He threw well at times,” said Bochy of Cain, who struck out six and allowed five hits. “Matt settled down. One pitch got away. It was a mistake, and that was against a guy who did some damage.”
  
It was the Arizona starter, Patrick Corbin, who was doing damage to the Giants. He retired the first nine betters in order and gave up only three hits through seven innings.
  
San Francisco, with Brandon Crawford tripling to center, however, picked up two runs in the eighth, and then Brandon Belt, pinch-hitting for Joaquin Arias, homered into McCovey Cove in the ninth to make it 4-4.
  
The usual sellout crowd at AT&T, the 177th straight, shook off its torpor and the icicles (summer left in late morning), screaming, chanting and thinking that as Monday night the home team would find a way.
   
Yes, as Bochy says virtually every game, these Giants, the World Series Champion Giants, prove resilient. But also at times, they tend to inefficient.
  
You can shrug off Sandoval getting thrown out by what, 20 feet or 25, attempting to score from second on Hunter Pence’s two-out single to right. It was the onetime Giant, Cody Ross, who cut him down. It was the third base coach, Tim Flannery, who sent him home.
  
“A two-out base hit,” said Bochy, whose managerial skills are rarely questioned, “you try to score. Ross charged it well. That’s part of the game.”
  
Part of this game, a huge part, was the Giants looking bewildered at the plate against the left-handed Corbin and incompetent with the gloves against the ground balls.
  
Three errors mean the other team figuratively gets 30 outs instead of 27. And wild pitches with a man on third in a tie game are ruination.
  
As Bochy said, you play enough games and those things occur. But for a team constructed upon pitching and with only one starter, Sandoval, who could be timed by an hourglass, hitting at least .300, when errors and errant pitches occur, too often you lose.
  
The Giants had won seven in a row at AT&T, and since baseball is a game of averages, surely they were due to drop one. It’s the way they dropped it that causes dyspepsia.
    
In the mind’s eye there’s Sandoval, rumbling into the end of an inning — yes, we’ll shrug it off — then moments later Casilla bouncing a ball as if he were a bowler in cricket rather than a pitcher in baseball.
  
Maybe the Giants should find satisfaction that, for a second straight game against the Diamondbacks, they rallied. But this time, it only extended the time until the eventual disappointment.
  
Bochy was asked why he allows his starting pitchers to stay in a game when they don’t appear to be particularly sharp, but it’s obvious. They are the strength of this Giants team, even on nights when they’re not particularly strong. Besides, he doesn’t want to overwork his bullpen.
  
“They’ve earned the right to stay in,” Bochy reminded, not that anyone who’s studied the Giants needed reminding. “You’re going to allow your guys to work.”
    
Cain worked, and that’s a good description. It wasn’t easy. He left trailing by four runs. The Giants managed to get those four and get even. After that, it was an embarrassment and a defeat.

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.

Giants are heads, and hats, above the rest of the West

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO – Hats off. No, hats on. Alex Smith of the 49ers wearing one from the Giants, a dastardly, fineable act according to the uniform police of the NFL. And, in response, Bruce Bochy sitting pre-game in the Giants’ dugout topped by a 49er hat.

Tit for tat. Or, literally, hat for hat.

"Our way of saying thanks,’’ Bochy would point out. “And we’re 1-0 with that hat.’’

The Giants were sending a message. Specifically, two messages: One, we’ve got your back, 49ers. (Or should that be we’ve got your hat?) And two, we’ve almost got the division, Dodgers.

It’s over, the National League West race, even though technically it’s not, and so even if the Giants absolutely couldn’t blow it, they’re saying all the right things about not easing up.

More significantly, they’re doing all the right things to prove they’re not easing up. Instead, they’re revving up.   

They clubbed the Colorado Rockies, 9-2, Thursday afternoon at AT&T Park, a sweep of the four-game series, an eighth win in the last nine games.

These are party days at the ballpark, from the pre-game organ solos – just like in the 1950s – to Pablo Sandoval rediscovering the home run to the seventh-inning Beatles’ recording of “Twist and Shout,’’ one of the great rock songs anywhere, anytime.

"Every single day, 41,000 people excited for us,’’ said Sandoval a short while after the one single day in his career in which he hit home runs both righthanded (in the first with no one on) and lefthanded (in the fourth with two on).

"We play hard for them.”

They’re playing hard and well and entertainingly. The unassailable idea that sport is intended to be tumultuous merriment is carried to the max every game at AT&T, where there’s laughter in the dugout and rejoicing in the stands.

At the so-called old man’s game, the crowds are young and joyful, singing, dancing, cheering.

"We are happy, not satisfied,’’ said Sandoval, the Panda. Until Wednesday, he hadn’t hit a home run in weeks, 161 at bats going back to July. Now he’s hit three in two games.

"We are loose and having fun.’’  He stopped momentarily. “But it’s not over yet.’’

Yes it is. Before the Dodgers played the Nationals, Thursday night, the Giants’ magic number was four, meaning any combo of four Giants wins and Dodgers losses would make San Francisco champions of the West. You think that’s not going to happen?

Bochy, managing his hat off – or on – was asked if he would watch the Dodgers-Nats game.

"No,’’ he answered. “I’m probably going to have dinner, to be honest with you.’’

There’s a man with perspective. A man with intelligence, not that we weren’t previously aware. A night off in the City by the Bay — why waste it watching a ball game?

He’d already been involved in a rewarding one.

Already had seen Barry Zito pitch well enough often enough to get the victory and, when he was removed in the sixth – “He hates it when I come out there,’’ said Bochy -- to get a standing ovation.

Had seen Marco Scutaro, the pickup of the year, at age 36 set a career season mark with his 175th hit (he added another) and raise his batting average to .301.

Had seen the Giants bat around and score six runs in the fourth, when Sandoval and Buster Posey hit back-to-back home runs and Zito had a fine sacrifice bunt that drew an appreciative cheer from a turnout as into the nuances of baseball as it was the taste of the garlic fries.

"The mood, tempo and spirit of the club are very good,’’ said Bochy. “That’s the way it’s been for a couple months. We did a great job on the road. Now we’re playing well here. This club has a lot of character. We’re having fun, keeping it loose.’’

Why be uptight when Matt Cain is zooming along, when Tim Lincecum appears to finding his immediate past, when Buster Posey, the presumptive MVP, is batting .335, when the Panda has found his stroke, when Barry Zito, the man the public despised, has a 13-8 record and receives standing o’s?

"The crowd and that enthusiasm,’’ Bochy said. “The adrenaline. We run on it. These guys feed off that. They’re (the fans) as happy for our success as we are.”

You need to win in sports, and the Giants the past few years have been winning. But there’s more. There’s the realization by management that people want to have a good time, and in the majors’ best ballpark, they must. Or there wouldn’t have been 159 consecutive announced sellouts.

You have to tip your hat to them, no matter if it says 49ers or Giants.

SF Examiner: Too much fumbling, bumbling by Giants

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

“These are the major leagues,” insisted Vida Blue on Comcast SportsNet this week. “This has got to stop.” Not the way the Giants are fielding. Or fumbling.

Who knew the Bad News Bears would be resurrected in orange and black? It was one thing when the Giants couldn’t hit a moving ball. It’s another when they can’t catch one.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company

SF Examiner: Optimism remains for Giants despite season rife with issues

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

The headline wasn’t wrong. "Injuries Leave Big Holes for the Giants to Patch." That was in the New York Times. About the New York football Giants, not to be confused with the San Francisco baseball Giants, who have as many big holes because of injuries and virtually no time to patch them.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2011 SF Newspaper Company

SF Examiner: Giants have no choice but to shake things up

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

The possibility became a reality. The Phillies, as suspected, have every bit what the Giants have in pitching. And as it became painfully apparent, much more than the Giants have in hitting.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company

SF Examiner: With or without NLCS victory, Giants are winners

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

SAN FRANCISCO — And where is Todd Wellemeyer anyway?

No knocks, please. He did his part. And then along came Madison Bumgarner. Isn’t that the way for winning teams — changes that over the course of a long season turn out to be the proper ones?

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company

(ArtSpander.com Exclusive) Giants win the game they needed

SAN FRANCISCO –- A day after giving up 11 runs, the Giants gave up none. A day after it seemed like it was time to forget the season, the season is there to be remembered.

“Here we are approaching September,’’ said Bruce Bochy, the manager, “and we are playing some very important ball games.’’

Like the one Friday night, the one in which Tim Lincecum went eight innings, Pablo Sandoval hit one into the seats and Giants beat the Colorado Rockies, 2-0.

This was like 2002 all over again at AT&T -- a game that mattered, a crowd that cared, a performance that scintillated. Unseasonable heat by the Bay, a temperature of 75 degrees at game time. Unsuspected brilliance from the home nine.

Lincecum hadn’t won a game in nearly a month. The guy nicknamed the Freak, because of his windup and follow-through, had been freaky. Or star-crossed. Either he gave up too many runs, as he did against the Reds a week and a half ago, or the Giants scored two few, as they did against the Rockies six days ago.

But the good times came flying back. Lincecum struck out eight, permitted only four hits. He had 39,047 people standing when he threw his 127th pitch of the game, the ball that had Seth Smith grounding out to end the eighth.

“Tim’s the guy you want on a the mound in a game like this,’’ said Bochy. “He had great stuff.’’

He pitched like the Cy Young Award winner he was in 2008, the way the Giants and crowd expected. And then he turned it over to Brian Wilson, who picked up another save, his 31st.

Monday night the Giants were wounded, blowing that 4-2 lead in the 14th to the Rockies in Denver. Thursday night the Giants were deflated, getting crushed by Arizona, 11-0, here at AT&T.

Nice run, guys. Nobody predicted you’d be in the race, so take a bow and step away.

That’s not the Giants. We see them collapse, give them their last rites and then watch in bewilderment and admiration as they prove to be as resilient as any team in baseball.

Sandoval, the Kung Fu Panda, the Bat, was back in the lineup after the flu and a right calf problem. He drove a ball into the left field bleachers in the fifth, his 20th home run. Eugenio Velez singled home Eli Whiteside in the sixth for the other run.

This on a night when the Giants left seven runners on base in the first two innings. When Lincecum twice failed to move a runner with a sacrifice bunt. When Whiteside’s attempt at a suicide squeeze in the eighth resulted in a double play, a pop up to the first baseman and Juan Uribe getting caught off third.

So many mistakes. But one victory, a win that moved the Giants to within two games of the Rockies in the National League wild card race, a win that made late-August baseball meaningful in San Francisco for the first time in years.

“This was a big game for us,’’ said Bochy, who can be excused for stating the obvious. “Every game is a big game for us from now on. But remember, there’s a lot of baseball left.’’

A lot of baseball that may not let us turn to football. This is the time we’re supposed to think about the 49ers and Raiders, but stubbornly the Giants won’t let us.

They don’t have hitting. In some games, they don’t have fielding. But they have staying power, persistence. It is not to be underestimated.

Lose 11-0 and then 24 hours later win 2-0. This is what you want in a team, the ability to rebound, the ability to struggle and stagger but succeed.

“This is what you play for,’’ agreed Bochy. “This is what you talk about in the early season, being here at this time.’’

The Giants are here. The Giants very much are here. Not for a long while could the postseason even be considered. They could fall quickly, could drop the next two to Colorado. But they also could win the next two and be tied with the Rockies.

The Giants lead the National League in shutouts with 17. It’s a sporting axiom that if the other team doesn’t score, you’re not going to lose.

“We’re the team behind,’’ reminded Bochy. “We have to catch them.’’

On Friday night, the Giants were the team ahead. On Friday night, baseball in San Francisco was thoroughly entertaining and completely satisfying.