Lincecum leaves no-hitter without regret

May 28, 2014 by Art Spander in articles, baseball

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

May 27, 2014 by Art Spander in articles, baseball

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.

Lincecum of old finds “Momen-TIM”

May 13, 2014 by Art Spander in articles, baseball

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — One word, cobbled together, pasted on the locker behind his head. “Momen-TIM.” That’s what the Giants had, Tim Lincecum waking up echoes and the home crowd reminding us of the way it used to be and perhaps still is.

Lincecum hadn’t had a start like this since last season. In his previous game, five days earlier, Lincecum made it only four innings against the Pirates, allowed eight hits, struck out only four.

There were questions, legitimate ones.

But on Monday night, with the weather gloriously warm, Tim Lincecum gave the answers. And the usual sellout crowd at AT&T Park, as Lincecum left for a reliever in the eighth, gave Tim an ovation that shook the stadium and shook Tim to his shoes.

“It was special in this park,” he said of the cheering. So was his performance, 7 2/3 innings, two hits, 11 strikeouts, which helped the Giants beat the Atlanta Braves, 4-2.

In 2013 Lincecum did pitch a no-hitter, but he had a 10-14 record with a 4.37 earned run average. What he didn’t have, said the experts, was the fastball, which once enabled him to win two National League Cy Young Awards. Nor by the end of September as a free agent did he have a contract.

Lincecum had lost something on his pitches but not anything from his popularity, as was proven again Monday night by the crowd response. So the Giants re-signed him, for big money, for major league money, $35 million for two years.

Nerve-wracking. Damned if they didn’t. Tim in a Mariners uniform? Horrors. Whacked if they did. Those first seven starts this season of 2014, Lincecum never made it out of the sixth inning and had an ERA of 5.55.

Then came Monday night. Then came the rhythm. Then came the domination, Tim striking out the side in the third and sixth.

And thanks to recent call-up Tyler Colvin, who homered with nobody on in the second and tripled with two on in the seventh, the Giants got their runs.

Eight wins in the last 11 games for the first-place Giants, 11 wins in their last 18 games. They have their troubles, true. Brandon Belt, the first baseman, will undergo surgery on his broken thumb and miss six weeks. Down in Los Angeles, Yasiel Puig is smacking them into the seats at Dodger Stadium. It’s going to be a race, going to be a struggle, but if Lincecum works as efficiently as he did Monday night the Giants will be very much in that race.

“I’m happy for Tim,” said Giants manager Bruce Bochy. “He came off a rough start successfully. It was vintage Timmy. He had his slider and his secondary pitches working, his fastball, his changeup. He had a good look about him all night.”

When you’re hot, they say, you’re hot. The Giants can do little wrong these days.

B.J. Upton, who had two of the Braves’ three hits — the third was a home run in the ninth by Freddie Freeman off Javier Lopez — doubled with one out in the seventh of a 1-1 game. Upton then apparently stole third. But Bochy asked for a TV review, and Upton was called out.

“It was that close,” said Bochy. “I had to wait. It was such a tough call.”

The call Giants management made last October was no less difficult. Do you give a man whose future is questionable a contract basically constructed upon his past? The Giants did. Lincecum was grateful. For the moment, the Giants are grateful.

“The key was to be aggressive,” said Lincecum of his game, “not go into many deep counts and don’t let the big guys hurt me.”

Lincecum threw 113 pitches, had all those strikeouts and only one big guy, Upton, hurt him, although since just a run scored the hurt was minor.

“The slider was working early,” said Lincecum. “I wanted to finish my pitches. I was driving my leg through. My game is relying on it.”

Colvin was the guy signed as a minor league free agent in February. He was brought up from Fresno on Saturday, and had a walk and an out against the Dodgers last weekend. Then, starting in left field Monday, boom, boom.

“Yes, this was the highlight of my career,” said Colvin, 28, who had been with the Rockies and Cubs. “To be part of a winning ball club and get a hit to help them to a win is a real good feeling.”

Lincecum has that feeling because he kept the Braves from getting hits. “I was able to keep my pitches down,” he said. “That really means a lot.”

It meant the Giants had what they needed, Moment-TIM.

Raiders smart, but Manziel would have been a story

May 09, 2014 by Art Spander in articles, football

By Art Spander

ALAMEDA, Calif. — The Raiders were wise and logical, employing their first-round pick Thursday to draft a linebacker who observers claim can do everything, much needed by a defense that could do very little.

Oh, if only the Raiders were less wise and more whimsical.

That Oakland took Khalil Mack of the University of Buffalo was both expected and well regarded.

Sporting journalists were resigned to the move while, sob, wishing instead for Johnny Manziel. It was to dream.

As the man who once ran the Raiders, the late Al Davis, told us in no uncertain terms, the idea is to “Just win, baby.”

Since the Raiders have not just won for 11 consecutive seasons, the selection of Mack — who “could have been the No. 1 overall pick,” wrote one scouting service — indicates that the organization is intent on changing both its record and its culture.

Yet think of how much fun it would have been by the Bay had Oakland chosen Manziel, the quarterback known as Johnny Football and the only guy in the draft who mattered, according to ESPN, the organization that dictates our tastes in things athletic.

Did the Raiders need to use the No. 5 pick of the first round on a QB, especially one supposedly both undersized and undisciplined? Not at all. They smartly took Mack, excellent at bringing down the passer.

Those of us with long memories recall Al Davis maybe 30 years ago, perhaps more, saying in one of those NFL Films segments, “The quarterback must go down, and he must go down hard.”

That was before the NFL became a passing league.

So, all credit to Raider GM Reggie McKenzie and head coach Dennis Allen. “He understands how to rush the passer, and to rush the passer with power,” Allen said of Mack, who played at University of Buffalo.

Beautiful, but do Allen and McKenzie understand what makes a great story? We humble folk behind the microphones and laptops most certainly do.

Imagine Johnny Manziel with the Raiders, even as a backup, and Colin Kaepernick with the 49ers, who face Oakland in a league game during the fall.

Sports writers, columnists, TV reporters, radio reporters, ESPN, CNN, Fox, and even Al Jazeera would have been lined up from Santa Clara to the Golden Gate Bridge for interviews.

Sure, Kap doesn’t say very much, and Johnny Football would be a backup, but that’s beside the point. They’re famous, which is not beside the point as you note from recent sporting tales. Fame sells.

We could have tossed in Alex Smith and Aaron Rodgers, brought up JaMarcus Russell. Pride, poise and pronouns. How enthralling. Alas, how impossible.

Manziel looked like someone who had swallowed a whole lemon as, unable to avoid the cameras, he waited while the draft plodded along. He finally went at No. 22. Shades of Aaron Rodgers in 2005.

But the Rodgers story was primarily local. He was a Cal kid, and the Niners had the No. 1 pick in the draft. Mike Nolan decided on Smith. Rodgers, falling to 24th in the opening round, eventually went to Green Bay and subsequently to the Super Bowl, State Farm commercials and a promo ad for the new Seth Rogen movie, “Neighbors.” See how things grow?

We could have blown up this Kaepernick vs. Manziel thing to where that’s all anyone would have been talking about. No such luck. Johnny Football is stuck in Cleveland, where the probability is he won’t make anyone forget Otto Graham or even Tim Couch.

What the Raiders want to forget is the recent past, their failings on defense. You have to stop the other guys or it doesn’t matter if Joe Montana or Jim Plunkett is your quarterback.

Enter then, along with Oakland free agent signings Justin Tuck and LaMarr Woodley, Khalil Mack.

Nobody — nobody — had a discouraging thing to say about Mack. Just the opposite. “Mack may be the most complete defender in the draft,” wrote Chris Burke in a Sports Illustrated blog. “Even ahead of (Jadeveon) Clowney. Considering he is adept at rushing the passer, stuffing the run and dropping in coverage, working him into the mix should not be too difficult.”

It is waste of time to ask of a sporting organization if it likes the picks it makes in a draft. “If they didn’t like them,” John Madden often said, “they wouldn’t have made them.”

Still, McKenzie and Allen, beginning their third year with the Raiders, seemed especially joyful.

“He’s a real man,” said Allen of Mack. “He’s a football-first guy. And he’s got tremendous work ethic and he’s a team player.”

Agreed. But Johnny Manziel is a story. Sob.

Firing of Warrior coach disappoints A’s Bob Melvin

May 07, 2014 by Art Spander in articles, baseball, basketball

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — Bob Melvin has been there. Has heard the phone ring the way Mark Jackson did. Heard the order to come to the office the way Mark Jackson did. Heard the words he was fired the way Mark Jackson did.

Melvin is a baseball man, who played for the Giants and others, and has been the Athletics' manager a month short of three years.

Melvin, who grew up in the Bay Area, also is a basketball fan, a Warrior fan “all my life,” as he phrases it.

So we talk to the guy nicknamed BoMel, grab him outside the dugout at O.Co Coliseum Tuesday before the A’s were beaten by Seattle, 8-3.

Because of the nature of the Coliseum complex — Oracle Arena attached to the big stadium — the Warriors, A’s and Raiders are in a way connected symbolically.

Maybe 100 yards over Melvin’s shoulder is the court where Thursday Mark Jackson coached his final home game for the Warriors, offering cryptic words before tip-off that nothing after this season would be the same.

Now he’s gone. Now Oracle is empty. Now Bob Melvin, A’s manager and Warriors fan, is disappointed. He is not alone.

Melvin, fired as manager of the Mariners after the 2004 season, fired as manager of the Diamondbacks after 2009, might have offered a different viewpoint, been more noncommittal or simply mused, “That’s the business.” He did not.

“I know Mark Jackson,” said Melvin. “Consider him a friend. I’m surprised, a little disappointed as a Warrior fan. But I’m certainly not an expert, and I don’t know what went on inside.”

We’re told that inside, Jackson was not trusted by the front office. Told that Jackson argued with the son of Warriors owner Joe Lacob. We know Jackson dispatched two of his assistant coaches. There was conflict. There was inevitability.

Not for Melvin, who graduated from Menlo-Atherton High down the Peninsula and then played baseball at Cal. He didn’t want Jackson ousted. On the contrary.

Melvin remembers the Warriors' years in the wilderness, the stretch of 17 seasons when they made the playoffs only once. This year under Jackson, last year under Jackson, the Warriors were a delight, a link back some 40 years when in 1974-75 they won the NBA title.

“I would like to thank (Jackson) for his unbelievable contributions in getting the organization to this point and the success that they had,” said Melvin. “And I believe he’s going to have a lot of choices afterwards.”

Jackson never had been a head coach at any level, much less the NBA, the top of the heap, when chosen out of the ABC-ESPN broadcast booth in June 2011. Now he’s experienced. Yet that doesn’t mean there will be an opening.

Or that a team that needs a coach will accept Jackson, a pastor in southern California, who may have been a bit too religious for those who controlled his destiny.

Melvin’s rookie managerial season was 2003 with the Seattle Mariners. He made it only through 2004.

“I expected to be fired,” he said. “I was with a team that was on its last legs. We won 93 games my first year. We lost 99 the second year. They needed to start fresh. I understood.”

He took over the Diamondbacks almost immediately, managing Arizona from 2005 through 2008 and winning the National League West in 2007. But when the D-Backs started 2009 a disappointing 12-17, Melvin was dumped.

“I didn’t understand that one as much, because of some of the success we had,” said Melvin. “It’s never been an ego thing. I’m not an ego guy. It’s all about the players anyway. But there’s disappointment because you feel you’re working hard and doing a job, and at least in the Arizona situation I felt we made some big strides to get where we were.”

Mark Jackson’s strides with the Warriors were plenty large, but that sign of progress became irrelevant to those in command.

“The old adage, that you’re hired to be fired, I don’t necessarily agree with that,” Melvin insisted. “The intent is to stay there for a long period of time. So I kind of take exception when people say you’re going to get fired anyway.

“That’s kind of a of a defeatist attitude.”

It’s also reality. As Bob Melvin and now Mark Jackson realize.

Warriors beautiful in an ugly game

May 02, 2014 by Art Spander in articles, basketball

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — It was so ugly, and yet it was so beautiful. It was basketball as boxing more than ballet, a game too full of missed shots and fouls, a game to be forgotten more than remembered.

Unless you were the Warriors.

Style didn’t matter for the Warriors. All that counted was the result. They had to get a win. A loss and the season was finished. A loss and they wouldn’t be together again on a court until the fall.

But they didn’t lose.

To the thrill of 19,596 fans at Oracle Arena. To the satisfaction of their head coach, Mark Jackson. Maybe even to the delight of the NBA, which on Saturday will have three game-sevens to put forth, one of which will match the Warriors, those how-did-they-do-it Warriors against the Clippers in Los Angeles.

That one became reality Thursday night when Stephen Curry intentionally missed a free throw, slamming it off the glass, with 00.4 remaining, so the Clips wouldn’t have a chance at a rebound, and the Warriors had a 100-99 victory.

The first-round playoff between the only two California teams in the postseason was tied at three wins apiece, and after all the emotion of the week, the tapes of racial remarks by Clippers owner Donald Sterling, the banning of Sterling by NBA commissioner Adam Silver, the emphasis was on playing the game.

No matter how poorly.

“This is who we are,” said Jackson, almost defensively, of a squad that wasn’t sharp on offense but had more than enough character. “We’ve proven that when we play our brand of basketball, we’re awfully tough to beat. I’m proud of my guys. It’s been an incredible, incredible ride.”

And it’s not over yet for the sixth-seed Warriors.

“Now against a three-seed with two of the top 10 players in the world, and a future Hall of Fame coach,” said Jackson, exaggerating a bit — if not that much about Blake Griffin, Chris Paul and Doc Rivers — “we are going to Game 7 in spite of all the sideline music.”

That’s his way of alluding to the situation involving Sterling, and involving the heart of the NBA, a league that prides itself on equality.

“And I like my chances because I’ve got a group of guys that want to do whatever it takes to win.”

Even when they only shoot 39.3 percent from the floor.

Even when they lose center Jermaine O’Neal with a knee injury just minutes into the second quarter.

Even when David Lee fouls out with 9:44 left in the fourth quarter.

They were down. They were up. They were down. They were up.

They got 45 minutes 29 seconds, 24 points and nine rebounds out of Curry. He wasn’t holding back, taking 24 shots, making nine, but why hold back when you’re trying to hang on?

They got 40 minutes 35 seconds from Draymond Green, who might not have had half that total if Andrew Bogut weren’t out with a fractured rib. Green had 14 points. Green had 14 boards.

“It wasn’t a very well-played game by either team,” said Rivers, the Clippers' coach, “going by shooting percentages. But I think both teams played extremely hard.

“I don’t know if they played harder than us, but they made the big plays. Give them credit. I thought they came up with just enough plays to beat us.”

That’s the whole idea, isn’t it? To win, if by one point as the Warriors did. Those fans at Oracle, in their gold T-shirts emblazoned with “Loud, Proud, Warriors,” were so wound up it seemed they could power the lights with their energy. This was it, the season on the brink, and they hoped to keep it alive.

Hoped the Warriors would keep it alive, which they did.

“They made tough shots,” said Jackson of his players. “You’re thinking, ‘Oh, my goodness. Can we get out of here and make sure there is a Game 7?'”

He knows the answer. We know the answer. We don’t know whether Game 7 will be the Warriors' last game of this 2013-14 season, but even a defeat should not diminish what they’ve attained and how they’ve done it.

“Those guys just competed,” Jackson said again. “I’m excited to see this young basketball team experience a Game 7 on the road. They haven’t experienced it as players. It’s new to Klay Thompson. It’s new to Stephen Curry. It’s new to Draymond Green. It’s new to all my guys, other than the veterans who have been around on other teams.

“It’s new to me. It’s going to be a lot of fun because a lot of folks didn’t we’d be here . . . We earned this platform.”

The very hardest way.

Giants are struggling – and in first

April 29, 2014 by Art Spander in articles, baseball

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.

The Sports Xchange: Ko, 17, earns first LPGA win as a pro

April 27, 2014 by Art Spander in articles, golf

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange

DALY CITY, Calif. — She had been the best women's amateur golfer in the world for 130 weeks when Lydia Ko, then 16, turned pro last October. Some wondered about the future.

They can stop wondering.

Read the full story here.

The Sports Xchange: Ko, Lewis push each other into Skirts lead

April 27, 2014 by Art Spander in articles, golf

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange

DALY CITY, Calif. — One, Lydia Ko, just 17, is supposed to be the future of women's golf. The other, Stacy Lewis, 29, is very much the present.

Together, which is how they've been grouped through three rounds and will be today in the fourth, they're giving the Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic an enthusiastic one-two punch.

Read the full story here.

Warriors on outside looking at Clipper win

April 25, 2014 by Art Spander in articles, basketball

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — The game is won inside. That’s the NBA playoff mantra. The Warriors are an outside team, a team that beats you with threes by Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson.

Or as Thursday night at the Oracle, when the three-pointers didn’t fall, beats itself.

You’ve heard the phrase, the cliché: Dance with what brung ya. You don’t chase your style or philosophy in the playoffs. And without Andrew Bogut, the W’s didn’t have much chance inside anyway.

The Los Angeles Clippers had too much for the Warriors. Too much offense from Blake Griffin, who was banking them off the glass or ramming them through the rim, who scored 32 points and played like a man who was the first overall pick in the draft, as he was five years ago.

The Clips had too much defense. The Warriors, greatest outside shooters in the league or so we’re told, went 6 for 31 on three-pointers, and at one juncture were 2 for 24.

A hot Griffin, a cold Stephen Curry, and the Clips win it, 98-96.

Yes, the W’s had the ball in the final few minutes. Yes, it was in Curry’s hands. Yes, the sellout crowd of 19,596, all in the gold-colored T-shirts with the slogan “Loud. Proud. Warriors” was shrieking hysterically, the W’s having cut an 18-point deficit to two.

But in this game, the better team won and deserved to win. And the Clips now lead the best-of-seven first-round series two to one, with Game 4 on Sunday at the same place and perhaps headed for the same result.

“We earned the game,” said Doc Rivers, the Clippers' coach, “because we played better.”

If not all the time, especially in a fourth quarter that could be considered a quasi-embarrassment to the sport. And more of the time than the frustrated Warriors.

“There’s going to be a game soon where both teams play great,” said Rivers. With a maximum of four games remaining, it better come soon.

“In this one, we survived,” said Rivers, as forthright as he is wise — the man having led the Boston Celtics to the championship not that long ago.

The Clippers had the third-best regular season record in the Western Conference, behind San Antonio and Oklahoma City. The Warriors were sixth. That Golden State stole Game One of the series may have given some the erroneous idea the W’s are better than the Clips.

They are not, although they could beat them in seven games. Except not playing as they did Thursday night.

Not shooting 41.6 percent. Not making 17 turnovers. Not letting Griffin make 15 of 25 from the floor.

“He’s just been great,” Rivers said of Griffin. “He’s making jump shots. The bank shot that he’s added to his game, facing the basket, has taken him to a different level, because he’s very difficult to guard now. If you get up on him, he goes around you, and if you back up on him, he uses the glass.”

The Warriors simply use their long-range shooting, and when it isn’t working — Klay Thompson, the exception, was 10 of 22 for 26 points — they’re where they were in the second half on Thursday, far behind.

“If anyone breaks the mold,” said Rivers, disputing the thought that an outside shooting team can’t win in the postseason, “it is (the Warriors). They’re great at it. We’re great at posting. We have to do what we do.”

Meaning get the ball to Griffin.

“He’s having an outstanding series,” said Mark Jackson, the Warriors' coach, “topping off an outstanding season. He’s playing at a high level.”

Curry had done the same until the last couple of games. But the Clippers won’t let him loose, double-teaming, chasing him around the court. At halftime, Curry had taken only three shots and made just one. He did finish with 16 points in 43 minutes, but that was on 5 for 12 from the floor.

“We were not playing well,” said Jackson, refusing to name any single player. “I thought we tried to do too much. We were just on the edge a little bit. Then we settled down.”

Now, however, the Clippers have settled on top of the Warriors. A win by 30 points in Game 2. A win by 2 in Game 4.

“I feel we’re in character,” said Jackson. “When we defend at a high level and execute and take the basketball it shows that we’re tough to beat, and that’s been consistent in this series, also.

“Where we’ve had problems is when we’ve turned the basketball over, we’ve taken bad shots. We’ve allowed them to get it going. We’ve gone away from the game plan discipline. We’re not good enough to do that and win.”

As they showed Thursday night.

The Sports Xchange: A's Chavez gets his first win of season

April 21, 2014 by Art Spander in articles, baseball

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange

OAKLAND — It's not exactly a Hollywood story, so call it a Fontana story. That's a working class city in Southern California about 40 miles east of Hollywood. Yet the location in this instance is not as important as the plot.

"It's all about getting an opportunity," said Bob Melvin, manager of the Oakland Athletics, "and doing something with it. Jesse got that opportunity."

Read the full story here.

Giants still can’t hit

April 17, 2014 by Art Spander in articles, baseball

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.

On Jackie Robinson Night, Giants win in early morning

April 16, 2014 by Art Spander in articles, baseball

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — The game was everything baseball could be and should be, full of passion and tension, and carrying with it thoughts of a pioneer whose courage and skill helped shape the sport to what it has become.

This was the night the Major Leagues honored Jackie Robinson, and at AT&T Park, the timing was perfect, even if the game time, 4 hours and 54 minutes, may not have been.

The Dodgers, Jackie’s team, against the Giants, which almost were Jackie’s team.

The Brooklyn Dodgers, of course, when Robinson in June 1947 became the first African-American to play in the major leagues. And the New York Giants, who nine and half years later, in December 1956, traded for Robinson, unaware — as were the Dodgers — that Jackie had retired.

So much on this Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, 12 innings of baseball coming to an end at 12:14 a.m., a beautiful end for the several thousand fans who remained from the sellout crowd of 42,469.

Hector Sanchez singled home Brandon Crawford from third, and the Giants were 3-2 winners.

The rivalry. The revelry. The reminders that major league baseball was off-limits to African-Americans until 1947 when Jackie, as beautifully planned by Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey, was elevated to the big club.

You know the story. You’ve seen the movie “42,” a slightly embellished version of Jackie’s life, as Hollywood biopics tend to be. That was Jackie’s number, 42, and Tuesday night it was worn by every player on both teams, by every player in the majors.

A grand gesture by the Giants, who used both their main radio announcer, Jon Miller, and famed Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully for the pre-game introductions. For the 86-year-old Scully, there was great meaning.

Beginning with the Dodgers in 1950, Scully not only knew Robinson but that winter he somehow got involved in an ice skating race with Jackie.

“We had some sort of symposium up at Grossinger’s in the Catskills,” Scully said earlier in the long evening. “There was a rink. I had grown up in New York, so I knew how to skate. Jackie, I don’t think had ever been on skates.

“He said, ‘I’ll race you.’ I was surprised. ‘But you don’t know how to skate.’ He told me, ‘That’s the way to learn.’”

What America learned was that baseball truly became an American game when the doors were opened to all races.

Another African-American who followed Robinson into the majors was Monte Irvin, who joined the Giants out of the Negro Leagues and played his way into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Irvin, 95, was invited to the pre-game festivities but sent a note, read to the crowd, that at his age air travel was too hard on his body.

Irwin played with Willie Mays, and Mays, heading for his 83^rd birthday, was in the Giants' clubhouse before the game, although he didn’t take part in any ceremonies. Too bad.

Another nice touch was the tribute to Boston on this first-year anniversary of the bombing at the marathon finish line. Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” the Red Sox’ theme song, was played over the sound system, and the AT&T crowd sang along, as the fans do at Fenway Park.

There was a full moon peering down from beyond McCovey Cove, further embellishing an evening made even more special when Sanchez, who had struck out as pinch hitter in the ninth and then replaced Buster Posey at catcher, ripped a pitch off Brandon League with two outs in the bottom of the 12^th.

“I had to do something,” joked Sanchez. “My wife was sitting in our car in the parking lot for three hours.”

League was the seventh Dodgers pitcher. Yusmeiro Petit, who got the victory, was the eighth used by the Giants.

“It’s great that every year we honor Jackie Robinson the way we do,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said in his pre-game interview in the dugout. “No man had his impact on baseball and society.”

Bochy made his comments at 4:30 p.m. nearly eight full hours before he and his team were done for the evening. And the morning.

This one won’t be forgotten for a long while.

Newsday (N.Y.): Miguel Jimenez, at 50, shows the youngsters something at Masters

April 13, 2014 by Art Spander in articles, golf - Masters

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

AUGUSTA, Ga. — He was close, and that did mean something for a 50-year-old in a sport where most of his competition is a decade or two younger.

Miguel Angel Jimenez didn't beat Bubba Watson, who won the Masters for the second time in three years. Nor did he finish ahead of Jordan Spieth or Jonas Blixt who, both being in their 20s -- Spieth 20, Blixt, 29 -- are young enough to be Jimenez's sons.

Read the full story here.

Bleacher Report: Renewed Bubba Watson Escapes Pressures, Looks Dominant After 2014 Masters

April 13, 2014 by Art Spander in articles, golf - Masters