By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
WIMBLEDON, England — For Serena Williams, it was a long day into night, but the only journey involved was from one tennis court to another.
Along with the figurative trip to Wimbledon's fourth round.
Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
WIMBLEDON, England — The ad is one you’d never see in America. “My sweat terminates here,” the lady is saying as she holds up a plastic bottle of Sure. They don’t dress things up in Britain, don’t use euphemisms.
In the United States, we “perspire.” Here, they sweat.
What we don’t do in the U.S. is play tennis on a high level anymore. Other than Serena Williams.
She’s the best women’s player around, maybe ever, but that’s one of those unwinnable debates, and Thursday, Williams beat both the rain and in the second round of 2013 Wimbledon somebody named Caroline Garcia, 6-3, 6-2.
Another U.S. lady also made it through, Madison Keys, who at 18, and with a smile as sweet as her backhand, might be the future for the American women, if it isn’t Sloane Stephens.
The American men’s game seemingly has no future. It definitely doesn’t have a present or, at the 127th All England Lawn Tennis Championships, a presence.
When, as expected, Novak Djokovic swept past a 30-year-old journeyman from Georgia, Bobby Reynolds, 7-6, 6-3, 6-1, Thursday early evening under the closed roof of Centre Court, it meant that for the first time since 1912, no U.S. male had made it to the third round at Wimbledon.
“I just happened to play after everyone else,” said Reynolds, as if he felt he were the reason for the failure. “We have some young talent in the pipeline . . . Sports are becoming a worldwide thing, and everybody is so good now.”
Other than the American men, but you can’t have everything.
What Serena had, after her 33rd straight match victory, was an apparent challenge from Andy Murray, the Scot who’s second in the rankings bellow Djokovic.
“He’s challenged me?” asked Serena. Two weeks ago she won the French Open. Now she’s aiming for a second straight Wimbledon and sixth overall.
When told, indeed, Williams continued, “Is he sure? That would be fun. I doubt I’d win a point.”
The question is whether Murray, runner-up last year to Djokovic, can become the first British man in 77 years to win Wimbledon.
The optimistic thinking is that, with all the train wrecks in his bracket so far — Rafael Nadal losing in the first round, Roger Federer in the second — Murray’s pathway to the final is much smoother than it would have been.
The defeat of Federer on Wednesday by the Ukrainian Sergiy Stakhovsky was considered so momentous the Daily Telegraph, a serious broadsheet, ran a photo of Federer across the entire top half of the front page. Not the front sports page but the front page, above the painful news of welfare cuts.
Stakhovsky’s most notable achievement until now, if you want to describe it that way, came in the first round of the French Open at the end of May. Angered about a call by the umpire on a ball that did or didn’t hit the backline, Stakhovsky ran to his equipment bag alongside the court, grabbed an iPhone and took a picture of a mark in the clay surface.
The decision remained unchanged, and the stunt cost Stakhovsky a $2,000 fine, but the video of him and the official pointing and focusing went viral. It seemed to be his 15 minutes of fame. Until he knocked Roger out of Wimbledon. And down the rankings.
When the new ones are released on July 8, Federer will be fifth, his lowest placing since June 2003, 10 years ago. A month and a half from his 32nd birthday, Federer must confront our doubts and perhaps his own.
“You don’t panic at this point,” Federer said defensively. For the first time in 37 Grand Slam tournaments he didn’t make it to the quarterfinals — a blow, even if an inevitable one because of his years.
“Just go back to work,” said Federer, “and come back stronger really.”
Wishful thinking, one would surmise, but that’s what so much of sport is about.
Serena Williams contends she doesn’t do much thinking about win streaks and such but only how best to face an opponent, the next being Kimiko Date-Krumm, the remarkable 42-year-old.
“I’ve never played her,” said Williams, who is 11 years younger. “I have so much respect for her. I think she’s so inspiring to be playing such high-level tennis at her age. And she’s a real danger on grass. It’s for sure not going to be easy, but I’ll be ready.”
Serena’s not going to sweat it. Or as we would say in the states, perspire it.
By Art Spander
For the Los Angeles Times
LONDON — The little world of tennis spun out of control Wednesday. Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova took figurative tumbles at Wimbledon far earlier than anyone believed, and others took actual tumbles on lawns apparently too slick for the purpose.
Federer, who advanced to the quarterfinals in his previous 36 Grand Slam tournaments, was knocked out of Wimbledon this time in the second round. And by a 27-year-old Ukrainian ranked 116th, Sergiy Stakhovsky, 6-7 (5), 7-6 (5), 7-5, 7-6 (5).
Copyright © 2013, Los Angeles Times
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
WIMBLEDON, England — For 9 1/2 years, 36 consecutive events, Roger Federer had never failed to reach the quarterfinals in any Grand Slam tennis tournament. But this Wimbledon he couldn't get past the second round.
A 27-year-old from the Ukraine, Sergiy Stakhovsky, 116th in the world rankings, defeated Federer, 6-7 (5), 7-6 (5), 7-5, 7-6 (5), a stunning conclusion to a long Wednesday afternoon of upsets, upset competitors and withdrawals.
Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
For the Los Angeles Times
LONDON — When Steve Darcis, a Belgian whose basic language is French, saw last Friday that he would be playing Rafael Nadal in the first round of Wimbledon, his response was an English vulgarity. Four letters, and that's about as far as it goes.
Nadal, a Spaniard, may be echoing Darcis' reaction today, because in this 127th Wimbledon, the world's fifth-ranked player and recent French Open champion already has gone as far as he can go. Nowhere.
Copyright © 2013, Los Angeles Times
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
WIMBLEDON, England — Rafael Nadal said he had no excuses. Neither did he have any way to halt a rapid, early tumble out of the All England championships a second consecutive year.
In 2012 it was in the second round to the 100th player in the men's rankings, Lukas Rosol. On Monday, in the first round of the 127th Wimbledon, Nadal was beaten by No. 135th-ranked Steve Darcis of Belgium, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (8), 6-4.
Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
WIMBLEDON, England — Another Wimbledon begins Monday on the lawns of the All England Club, and what's Wimbledon without rain and wind — both made an appearance Saturday — and without a controversy?
Maria Sharapova took a huge shot at Serena Williams Saturday, lashing back at her when asked about a Williams comment — the author assumed it to be about Sharapova — in Rolling Stone magazine.
Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
For GlobalGolfPost.com
ARDMORE, PENNSYLVANIA — Oh yes, Merion, that 6,996-yard Rubik's Cube of a golf course. A beauty who wooed with a beckoning finger and holes out of the last century but when you tried to get too close smacked you with a wicker basket full of unfulfilled promises.
Poor Merion, we kept saying. They were going to ...
Copyright 2013 Global Golf Post
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
ARDMORE, Pa. — Tom Watson said that for most golfers, the opportunity to win a major championship doesn't last very long.
"With exceptions such as Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player,'' Watson said, "the window is a small one — five, six, seven years.''
Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
ARDMORE, Pa. — Rookie pro Shawn Stefani made a hole-in-one Sunday on one of Merion's toughest holes, the 229-yard 17th, with his 4-iron shot bouncing off the banking to the left of the green and rolling about 50 feet into the cup. It was the first ace in any of Merion's five U.S. Opens but the 43rd in Open history.
"When the crowd went crazy,'' he said, "I knew it went in."
Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
ARDMORE, Pa. — Justin Rose pointed to the sky and shed a few tears. Phil Mickelson could only point to himself, swallow hard and talk about heartbreak again and again.
Rose won the 113th U.S. Open on a course that took willingly, gave grudgingly and left the bewildered Mickelson a runner-up for a sixth time in America's national golfing championship.
Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
ARDMORE, Pa. — The players first and second in the world golf rankings went at each other at Merion Golf Club Saturday in the third round of the U.S. Open. Is it too strong to say both lost? Certainly neither felt like a winner.
Rory McIlroy, No. 2 in the world, shot 5-over-par 75. The man ahead of him in the rankings, if not the Open standings, did even worse. World No. 1 Tiger Woods finished with a 76.
Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
ARDMORE, Pa. — Once more Phil Mickelson is on the brink, with the chance to win the championship he covets, America's national championship, the U.S. Open.
Saturday afternoon, with the lead slipping through one pair of hands after another, as if it was the white sand in the bunkers of famed Merion Golf Club, Mickelson eventually ended up where he had been at the end of the previous two rounds: in first.
Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
ARDMORE, Pa. — It began with a yawn, then a bogey. One was expected. For Phil Mickelson, down from the wild blue yonder, perhaps both were.
“Bones and I have a saying,” Mickelson mentioned in reference to his caddy, Jim “Bones” Mackay. “Some of my best rounds of my career have started with a bogey.
“We just kind of looked at each other and laughed.”
This round on Day 1 of the 113th U.S. Open not only was one of the best for Phil Mickelson, it was one of the most remarkable, recorded after a cross-country flight, after very little shuteye and after a weather delay that extended more than three and a half hours.
This is what Phil Mickelson on Wednesday evening in California and Thursday morning and afternoon in Pennsylvania accomplished:
“Yeah,” Mickelson said, “it might be abnormal, but it actually worked out really well.”
Worked out better than most dared imagine, but that’s Phil, a man who challenges the limits, whether hitting a driver off the tee of the 72nd hole of the 2006 Open and taking a double-bogey or commuting daily by jet the 120 miles or so from his home in Carlsbad to the Northern Trust Open at Riviera in Pacific Palisades.
“I might have used just a little caffeine booster at the turn,” confided Mickelson. “Just to keep me sharp. But that was our ninth hole or so, and I just wanted to make sure I had enough energy.”
The man will be 43 Sunday, which is both Father’s Day and the scheduled final round of the Open, a tournament in which Mickelson five times has finished second but never once has come in first.
Maybe getting away will be the trick. He had planned to return home for the graduation speech. “She did a great job,” said Phil of Amanda, “she even quoted Ron Burgundy.” That’s the character played by Will Ferrell in the film Anchorman.
“So,” said Mickelson, “it was funny.”
Others suggested there was nothing funny about Mickelson’s cross-continental journeys, but he can laugh last.
“I got all my work done on Merion when I was here a week and a half ago,” he said. Then, when storms inundated Merion, on Monday he returned home and worked on his game in great weather in the Golden State.
“I think mental preparation is every bit as important as physical,” Mickelson said, “and I was able to take time on the plane to ready my notes, study, relive the golf course, go through how I was going to play each hole, where the pins were, where I want to miss it, where I want to be.”
Where he ultimately wants to be is at the top of the leader board, and with three more rounds to go he could get there.
“This was as easy as the golf course is going to play,” Mickelson said of historic Merion, where Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan and Lee Trevino all won an Open through the years.
“We had very little wind. We had soft fairways, and there were no mud balls . . . But we are struggling because it’s such a penalizing course . . . It’s a course that’s withstood the test of time.”
A course that shared a role in Phil Mickelson’s dramatic, indeed historic, travels and shots. Amanda told her dad not to make the trip, but he wasn’t going to miss her shining moment.
“She worked very hard,” he reminded, “and I’m very proud of her.”
Someone suggested maybe he would fly back to Carlsbad on Thursday evening.
“I don’t want to push it,” insisted Mickelson.
By Art Spander
ARDMORE, Pa. — The site is a work of art in miniature. "Merion the Small," it could be named, a course trapped by geographical restrictions in a leafy suburb of Philadelphia. Yet through the years, it has been large in the history of American golf.
It was at Merion, the 1930 U.S. Amateur, where Bobby Jones completed the fourth and final leg of the Grand Slam. It was at Merion where Ben Hogan, a year removed from his awful auto accident, hit that splendid 1 iron to get into a playoff for the 1950 Open. It was at Merion where Lee Trevino tossed a rubber snake before a playoff in the 1971 Open, in which he would beat Jack Nicklaus.
That’s how we think of Merion. That’s how we think of golf. Who did what and when. And so the question to Tiger Woods on Tuesday, two days before the 2013 Open is to begin at Merion, was more logical than it seemed in a crowded press tent.
When Woods shows up at a special tournament, an Open, a Masters, a British Open, does he feel a responsibility to respond to the situation, to play as we expected him to play in a major, stepping forward into the figurative spotlight if not into the literal lead?
Those who have watched Tiger, who have listened to Tiger, could have predicted the response. If Woods is not always consistent in his golf — who is? — he is in his answers. They remain unchanging.
“I think,” he reminded, “I just enter events to win, and that’s it, whether there’s a lot of people following or nobody out there. It’s still the same. It’s still about winning the event . . . just to try to kick everyone’s butt.”
It’s Tiger’s derriere which has been kicked in major championships of late. Not since the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines has Woods been first in a major. Some good finishes, but not the finishes Woods, “all about winning,” has sought.
A shade under 7,000 yards in this era of 7,500-yard courses, Merion has been judged the perfect place for Woods to get that win — he rarely has to use the driver, the worst club in his bag — but also, because it negates his length, the most difficult course for Woods to get that win.
“I don’t have an exact feel for it yet,” said Woods, “what we’re going to have to do and what we’re doing to have to shoot.” His practice rounds have been played on a Merion soaked by relentless rain, a Merion whose fast greens have been slowed.
“We haven’t dealt with teeing it up in a tournament yet with it raining and drying out and mud balls appearing.”
He has dealt with the Sergio Garcia Affair, and the media forces him to continue doing so. Garcia was angry with Woods when they were paired together last month at The Players. A few days later, at function in London, Garcia attempted to crack wise about Tiger, saying he was inviting him to dinner and would serve fried chicken – a comment that could be considered racist.
Garcia apologized, and Monday, Garcia and Woods shook hands. Queried, Tiger explained, “We didn’t discuss anything. Just came up and said, ‘Hi,’ and that was that . . . He’s already (given an apology). We’ve already gone through it all. It’s time for the U.S. Open, and we tee it up in two days.”
When he spoke, a couple hours after Woods, Garcia confirmed an Associated Press story that he had left a handwritten note for Tiger.
“And hopefully,” Garcia said, “he can take a look at it. And it’s a big week, and I understand that it’s difficult to meet up and stuff. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do it. If not, at least he has read the note, and he’s happy with that.”
What Tiger was unhappy with 10 days ago was his play at the Memorial, a tournament that Woods had won five times but this year ended up in a tie for 65th, making some wonder if that was proper preparation for the Open.
“I didn’t play well,” Woods conceded about the Memorial. “I didn’t putt well. I didn’t really do much that I was pleased about. But it was one of those weeks. It happens, and you move on from there.”
Move on to America’s national championship. Move on to Merion, where the bunkers are large and the crowd will be boisterous. After all, this is Philly, where during a holiday pageant at halftime of an Eagles game the fans began to boo the poor chap dressed as Santa Claus.
“This is our U.S. Open,” said Tiger, "and obviously there won’t be as many people as there were at Bethpage, I think it will be just as loud and just as electric. I’m sure we’ll hear them.”
They will. He will. Merion and its history are special. Tiger Woods and his history are special. The game is on.
By Art Spander
SAN FRANCISCO — The sign is small but poignant, pasted on the door of the small cabinet where Tim Lincecum keeps items above his locker. It’s in two different colors for obvious emphasis, but here we’ll depict it in lower case and capitals, “momenTIM.”
That’s what he’s been searching for, trying to regain the style and domination that won two Cy Young Awards, that helped the Giants win two World Series — even if he was a reliever in the second one, 2012.
That’s what his ball club was hoping for, waiting for.
And on a Tuesday night at AT&T Park that may have been a breakthrough but at the least was the sort of performance he has produced in his best of times — the best of Tims, if you will — Lincecum woke up more than a few echoes as well as the 196th straight sellout crowd, 41,981.
After giving up a first-inning home run to dead center by Edwin Encarnacion that surely brought thoughts of “Here we go again,” Lincecum gave up only one more hit and no more runs, San Francisco defeating the Toronto Blue Jays, 2-1.
Lincecum had lost his last three starts, had, in order, been responsible for allowing six earned runs against the Rockies, then four earned runs against the Rockies, then last week five earned runs against the Athletics.
More than a hint had been offered about Lincecum taking his unpredictability — well, he was predictable for his failings — and his $20 million salary to the bullpen as, yikes, a middle-inning reliever.
He wasn’t thinking that way. Neither was Giants manager Bruce Bochy, publicly, although Bochy refused to confirm or deny that Lincecum would make what would be his next regular start, Sunday at Arizona. The way balls fly out of Chase Field in Phoenix, well, San Francisco probably would be better using Chad Gaudin.
Desperate times — and the Giants had dropped five of their previous seven — demand desperate measures. But after Tuesday night, with Lincecum retiring 14 in a row at one stretch, striking out six and walking only one, there is considerably less desperation around Willie Mays Plaza.
“We needed that,” Bochy said of Lincecum’s pitching. Did they ever. A team with a collective earned run average of 4.15 (after Tuesday night) and not much of an offense had to find something in which to believe. They think they’ve found it.
“That’s the Timmy we know,” contended Bochy. Well, the Timmy we knew back yonder, the Timmy who didn’t get crushed by a three- or four-running inning, the Timmy who got the ball over the plate.
“His pitches were crisper,” said Bochy, who as he addressed the media appeared more relaxed than before the game. “He had great stuff. This is something he can build. Even when he had bad games, he had good stuff. Last year he was out of rhythm. That hasn’t been the problem this year.”
Whatever the problem was or is, Lincecum, after the fine way he pitched, still had only a 4-5 record with a somewhat astronomical 4.75 ERA. Of course, it was 5.12 before his brilliance against the Blue Jays.
“This should do a lot for his confidence,” said the manager. “This game, that’s more our style, good pitching and good defense. We got it done.”
Indeed. For a second straight game, the Giants — who, with more than 40 errors for the season, have been mishandling grounders and throws like the Bad News Bears — didn’t make a single error. Physical or mental.
Lincecum was pleased but not much more. One game doesn’t atone for what had preceded it, although as Bochy reminded this is the direction the pitcher and the ball club want to head.
“It feels good,” confided Lincecum, “but I’m not jumping up and down. (Wednesday) is another day for work.”
Since his last start, seven days earlier, Lincecum said he worked and worked, attempting to make certain his fastball, the key to his repertoire, found the edges of the plate, strikes that were virtually unhittable and not pitches that either were down the middle or wide.
“I worked my fastball to both sides of the plate,” said Lincecum. “That was the big thing. That opened things for my other pitches. I was hitting my spots more often, more consistently.”
What Andres Torres, the Giants left fielder, hit was a two-run home in the second that turned out to be all the runs San Francisco would score and would need. Torres also made a couple of excellent catches off deep balls in the fourth, one against the fence in the corner.
“Not easy plays to make,” said Lincecum. But plays that are made when good pitches are made and all the pieces fit together almost perfectly. “The rhythm was there, and I was mechanically sound. That makes just throwing the pitches the only factor.”
If the factor that matters most.
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.
By Art Spander
OAKLAND — There was no magic. The Michael Kickham debut wasn’t Hall of Fame stuff, wasn’t even enough to get the San Francisco Giants a win.
These are the majors. These guys are the best. “Mistakes here,” conceded Kickham, “are magnified.”
For an individual. For a team.
The Giants are not doing very much right these days. Across the Bay from their home park, at the O.co Coliseum, against the Athletics, they’ve done everything wrong.
So the A’s made it two in a row over the Giants, one in a row over the rookie Kickham up from the minors, beating San Francisco, 6-3, Tuesday night. That follows a 4-1 win Monday.
The best team in Northern California at the moment, and maybe for a period longer than that, is Oakland. The A’s have won five in a row, 10 of their last 11.
The Giants are the defending World Series champions, but that was then, this is now, and now is a team whose strength, starting pitching, is no longer its strength. And whose weakness, offense, is magnified.
Angel Pagan, the table setter, the leadoff man, is ailing. Without him in the lineup the Giants seem flat, the middle of the order ineffective. Pablo Sandoval, with the flu or a virus, something keeping from his best, was 0-for-3, and is 2 of his last 21. Buster Posey didn’t have a hit in either game at Oakland.
“We got guys struggling at the plate,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said in a statement impossible to deny. “Our offense is not scoring runs. Give their pitchers credit.”
The A’s starting pitcher Tuesday night, when again Oakland sold out the restricted-seat Coliseum, was Jarrod Parker. He gave up a run in the first and another in the sixth. Two runs allowed in seven innings.
Giants pitching used to do that. A’s pitching is doing it now.
“It was exciting catching him and watching him,” Derek Norris said of Parker. “He’s a potential Cy Young winner.”
So Norris was a bit carried away. That is allowable. He hit a two-run homer off Kickham in the second. And he was superb at the most important job for any catcher, making sure his own pitcher is in control.
The interleague series goes west Wednesday and Thursday, if not very far, to the other side of the bridge, San Francisco, where the Giants have a winning record, as opposed to the losing one they have on the road, where they’ve dropped seven out of eight.
Tim Lincecum starts for the Giants, and as things go these days that’s hardly a sure thing. He’ll probably last longer than Kickham, whose contract was purchased from Triple-A Fresno only hours before his first pitch Tuesday. He’s the fill-in for Ryan Vogelsong. He went 2 1/3 innings. He’s not the savior.
“He showed really good stuff early,” said Bochy. Yeah, like one inning, the first, when the 24-year-old Kickham retired the A’s on eight pitches. Wow! And then whoops.
A strikeout to open the second, after which Oakland’s Jed Lowrie singled. Then a strikeout. But on a 3-1 count, Norris smashed one into the left field seats.
“It was a decent pitch,” said Kickham. “But it came on a hitter’s count.”
And the hitter hit, but if Madison Bumgarner can’t beat the A’s — although Monday he didn’t pitch badly — it’s difficult to fault Kickham for not beating the A’s.
“His stuff was impressive,” said Bochy, maybe trying to make himself feel as good about the defeat as Kickham. “He just started missing by a little bit. A couple of mistakes.”
One, insisted Bochy, after the Giants lost for the fourth time in six games, was not the decision to elevate Kickham to the big-league team. Kickham can get wild on occasion, but some of his fastballs reached 94 mph. Still, out of 65 pitches in fewer than three full innings, he had only 36 strikes.
“It was awesome just to get the opportunity to put on a Giants jersey,” said Kickham, who has been in pro ball only since 2010. “It’s a great opportunity. (The game) didn’t go how I wanted, obviously, but it was something to learn from.”
Before the game, Bochy described what he liked about Kickham, his repertoire, his manner.
“It’s a big day for him, as it is for anyone his first big-league game,” said Bochy. “He probably could use another year at Triple-A, but he’s here. We’ll know more about him after the game.”
They do. So do the Oakland A’s.
By Art Spander
SAN FRANCISCO — That’s who they really are, the Giants. At least who they’re supposed to be, a team that keeps the game close, which has great pitching and effective fielding. For three games, three reassuring games, that’s exactly what they did.
There was a loss Wednesday, an agonizing, grinding 2-1 loss to the Washington Nationals at AT&T Park, a loss that reminded how difficult it is to win in baseball.
A loss, but not a downer.
Not one of those “What the heck is going on here?” type of exhibitions the Giants had a week ago at Toronto and Colorado when they got pummeled, giving up extra-base hits, dropping ground balls — or throwing them away — and dropping five games out six.
A “horrible trip” is what Bruce Bochy called it, and for a manager perennially upbeat, that’s a concession as shocking as what happened to the pitching and defense.
But the return to the ballpark by the bay brought a return to what we had known as Giants baseball, an 8-0 win over the Nats on Monday, a 4-2 win in 10 innings on Tuesday, and then that 10-inning, 2-1 defeat on Wednesday. Four runs allowed in three games.
"The guys bounced back," said Bochy. "They got on track here. This was more (like) our baseball. It was very encouraging how we played in this series. We played well again.
“Sure it was a loss (Wednesday), but the way we played was encouraging. Good pitching. What we thought we could do.”
Which was hang to in there. To go through some of that sweet torture made famous in that championship season of 2010.
On Tuesday, they rallied to tie and then won in 10 on Pablo Sandoval’s home run.
On Wednesday, they rallied to tie, then lost in 10 when the superkid, Bryce Harper, who earlier had homered, doubled and scored on Ian Desmond’s single.
“Their defense beat us,” said Bochy. Quite probably. After Buster Posey singled home Angel Pagan with one out in the eighth, Hunter Pence drove a liner to right that Harper grabbed on a dive. Then when Brandon Belt smashed one on the ground to right, first baseman Adam LaRoche stopped the ball from going through and forced Posey at second.
Two innings later, Washington, underachieving this season, got the run that got the win.
“He’s a good hitter,” Bochy said of Harper, an understatement.
Harper, the 2012 NL Rookie of the Year, has been labeled the “New Natural.” He was the overall No. 1 pick in the 2010 amateur draft — a year after teammate, Stephen Strasburg, the pitcher, was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2009 draft.
The Nats have talent. So do the Giants, or they wouldn’t have won the World Series twice in the past three seasons. The Giants also had problems, those one-sided losses in Toronto and Colorado. With Ryan Vogelsong out with a broken finger and Santiago Casilla also on the disabled list, they still have them.
Yet Matt Cain’s start on Tuesday, only two runs allowed, and Madison Bumgarner’s on Wednesday — seven innings, one run — were reminders of the way it was and should be once more.
“It was no fun to give it up (at Colorado), but we know what we can do,” said Bumgarner. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
What he didn’t say was that the ugly exhibition on the road wasn’t what people have come think of as the San Francisco Giants. “No,” was his one-word response when asked if that was anything close to what he or his teammates expected.
What Bochy and the 190th consecutive sellout crowd at AT&T expected Wednesday was exactly what they got, great pitching, Washington’s Gio Gonzalez — formerly with the Oakland A’s — and Bumgarner matching shutouts through five innings.
Then, leading off the sixth, Harper, a left-handed batter, powered a 1-2 pitch off Bumgarner, a left-handed thrower, into the left field stands.
"I think he made it pretty clear that he's going to play as hard as he can every day," Bumgarner said of Harper. "It's fun to play against guys like that. Most everybody plays that way, but ... he's the kind of player who can bring out the best in you."
The Giants, with a day off Thursday, believe the games against the Nats brought out the best in them after a week when they played their worst.
The only disappointing thing Wednesday, other than the final score, was the end of Marco Scutaro’s hitting streak, which had reached 19 consecutive games.
Scutaro was the Giants’ final batter. With two outs in the bottom of the 10th, he hit one that appeared might reach the fence but was caught on the warning track by Roger Bernadina.
“He just missed it,” said Bochy.
By Art Spander
For GlobalGolfPost.com
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They knew his story, his triumphs and his failures. How he had battled himself as well as the best...
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