S.F. Examiner: Sharks earn first Stanley Cup finals berth in team history

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

And so a quarter-century of silence is over. That’s a figure of speech, of course, because when it comes to the San Jose Sharks, home fans never have been silent, although in the team’s history, starting at the Cow Palace, then continuing on to the glass-bricked building now known as SAP Center, there may never have been a crowd as raucous as Wednesday night.

“Make Noise,” advised the big message board hanging from the rafters, and never has such advice gone to waste. If the 17,562 fans made any more noise, well, the jets that swoop in for landings at nearby San Jose International would have been drowned out.

Read the full story here.

©2016 The San Francisco Examiner

Bochy on Cueto: ‘This is why we wanted him here’

By Art Spander

It isn’t quite the sweet torture of a few seasons past. Oh, the Giants make you sweat, make their manager — the incomparable Bruce Bochy — wish it didn’t have to be as difficult as it seems to be. Yet, with that pitching staff, and Monday night Johnny Cueto was the man, there’s also a feeling the other team might never score.   

Now for two straight games, Sunday the awesome Cubs, Monday the not-so-awesome but very tenacious Padres, the other team hasn’t scored.

And finally the Giants did score. If barely. But when Cueto follows Madison Bumgarner, barely is plenty. Yes, consecutive games in which San Francisco could only score a run, Monday night when Hunter Pence, with a sore hamstring, pinch-hitting for Cueto, blooped a two-out ball to right in the ninth that Matt Kemp couldn’t reach.

Down went the ball, in ran Brandon Belt from first, and it was 1-0 Giants.     

Just as on Sunday it was 1-0 Giants, if against another team.

They’ve got the routine down. So exhale. And commend management for signing Cueto, a free agent, over the winter.

He is earning $130 million, a lot, but the long-held theory here is for cars, wine and ballplayers you almost always get what you pay for. Cueto is wonderful verification.

In his last four games, including this cold Monday night at AT&T Park, Cueto has allowed a total of three runs. The statement has been repeated often but perhaps not often enough: If the opponent doesn’t score, you can’t ever get worse than a 0-0 tie.

Which is what we had going into the bottom of the ninth. Now what the Giants have is a third straight win and 11 wins in the last 12 games. That ain’t bad.

“Pretty amazing what our pitching is doing,” said Bochy. Not really. It’s doing that it needs to do. What Cueto, 7-1, with a 1.93 earned run average (compared to Bumgarner’s 2.17) did was hold the Padres hitless the first 3 2/3 innings, give up only two hits total and pitch his second consecutive complete game after going nine in a 2-1 win against the Padres five days earlier in San Diego.

“This guy’s done it when he was with Cincinnati in that Great America Park,” said Bochy of a location as different as imaginable from spacious AT&T, a pitcher’s paradise. Cueto last year was traded from the Reds to Kansas City, where he was on a World Series champion. As a free agent he joined the Giants, where life is both beautiful and nerve-wracking.

“I’m enjoying it,” said Cueto, a Dominican, through translator Erwin Higueros. “I can handle these close games.” He understands the English questions well enough but is more comfortable giving the answers in Spanish. His fastballs and sliders speak a universal baseball language. Get out of here.

Cueto swings a mean bat, but he doesn’t always connect. In the bottom of the seventh, with two outs, Angel Pagan, who had walked — and subsequently reinjured his hamstring — was on second and Gregor Blanco, walked intentionally, was on first. Bochy may have considered a pinch hitter but not for long. Cueto had thrown only 78 pitches so he came to the plate — and struck out swinging.

“I was thankful that finally Pence came in to get a hit,” said Cueto.

So was Pence, who before the game was tentative about getting into the lineup. “But I felt fine,” said Pence, “when I went up there.”

Bochy was pleased with the ending but less so with the progress of the game. “We made it hard,” he said. “We had those two runners on in the first. We didn’t execute.”

Kelby Tomlinson and Matt Duffy had back-to-back one-out singles, Tomlinson going to third. But Duffy was caught attempting to steal second and Buster Posey struck out.

“Their guy did a great job too,” Bochy said of Padres lefthander Drew Pomeranz, who went seven shutout innings. “We thought it would be a close game.”

Isn’t it always when the Giants are involved? Sure, there are exceptions, such as Chicago’s 8-1 win on Friday night, but otherwise it was 2-1 and 3-1 over San Diego and then 1-0 and 1-0 over the Cubs and the Padres.

“That game Sunday,” said Bochy about the victory over Chicago “was one of the great baseball games. It had everything. Then we come back with this one.

“We had Johnny Cueto on our radar last year. This is why we wanted to bring him here.”

Newsday (N.Y.): Michael Pineda gets first win since April 6

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

OAKLAND, Calif. — Michael Pineda stood taller, literally, extending his body to the maximum, which is considerable for someone who is 6-7. And also figuratively, finally looking like the pitcher he and the Yankees believed he was.

It had been a difficult seven starts for Pineda, who was winless in each of them. But he came to the mound at O.co Coliseum on Sunday after working on standing more erect, which would help him throw sliders to the bottom of the strike zone.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2016 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Rob Refsnyder gets big hit, but will he be staying with Yankees?

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

OAKLAND, Calif. — The question was inevitable. So was the answer.

Rob Refsnyder had the big hit Saturday, proving that on this day, at least, he deserved to be on the Yankees. But not unexpectedly, the present seemed less important than the future — the immediate future.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2016 Newsday. All rights reserved.

S.F. Examiner: Curry Flurry buries the Thunder

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

It was desperation. No matter the mantra from the Warriors. They had to win that game or they were finished. They couldn’t lose the first two at home against the Oklahoma City Thunder and expect to win this series, not to mention another NBA championship.

It was desperation, but then it was Steph. And in the end it was elation.

Read the full story here.

©2016 The San Francisco Examiner

And then there was Steph — who else?

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — Steph. Who else? The game wasn’t supposed to be that close. But it was. The Trail Blazers wouldn’t fade, wouldn’t recognize they were beaten, even when they were. The Blazers just kept coming, like blazes, if you’ll accept the line.

There they were, within two points. And then there was Steph. Swish. We’ve seen it before. We’ll see it again.

A three-pointer. A step-back 26-footer with 24.9 seconds left. A dagger. “I mean, Steph is Steph,” said Warriors coach Steve Kerr. “I think our fans are used to it. I’m used to it. He makes these incredibly difficult shots.”

Makes them when the team needs him to make them.

“He makes big-time shots,” said Blazers coach Terry Stotts. “That last shot he made was well defended. He’s a special player who can do special things.”

He’s the NBA’s Most Valuable Player for a second straight year, a unanimous choice this time, for the first time in history. He got the trophy in ceremonies before the game, and then with that basket, which put the W’s ahead by three, he helped get a thrilling, nerve-wracking 125-121 victory Wednesday night at Oracle.

So the Warriors, the defending champions, take the Western Conference semifinals as they took the first round, four games to one, and now will face the winner of the San Antonio-Oklahoma City series for the right to get to the NBA finals once more.

It wasn’t just Steph Curry, however, on this night that started late — tipoff was just before 8 p.m. — and ended very late, around 10:45. It was also the man who had been carrying the Warriors when Curry was out with a bad knee, Klay Thompson, who was 13 of 17 from the field and had 33 points. And it was Draymond Green, hustling, rebounding (11), scoring (13) and screaming, as he so often does. And it was Shaun Livingston, a sub once more, with 10 points.

“Klay’s shooting was incredible tonight,” affirmed Kerr. “Then the way Steph finished the game, that step-back shot to put it to a five-point lead, was probably only a shot he can make.

“It was like we were running on fumes a bit at the end, between Draymond’s ankle (Green was limping late in the fourth quarter) and (Andrew) Bogut’s not playing in the second half (he had a strained adductor). But we talk about our depth all the time.”

And display it all the time. “Strength in Numbers” is more than a slogan on all those gold T-shirts given to the fans. Curry was out for three games. Livingston got bounced two games ago on two technicals. Green plays forward — and center. And guard. Andre Iguodala is indispensable. Marreese Speights hit a big three-pointer.

The way the Warriors came back from the huge deficit Monday in game four at Portland — that TV shot of Blazers billionaire owner Paul Allen, who looked like he swallowed a lemon, told it all — one might have figured the Blazers wouldn’t be competitive Wednesday. Wrong, so wrong.

For so long, Portland, with Damian Lillard scoring 28 and C.J. McCollum scoring 27 — add Klay and Steph, and what a foursome of guards — was in charge, going in front by 11 points and hanging tough against a hostile crowd and a favored Warriors team.

“That’s a terrific basketball team,” Kerr said of the Blazers, and he was absolutely right. Portland led at halftime of games two, three, four and five. “That’s a tough team to guard and a tough team to play against.”

So, of course, are the Warriors, with their three All-Stars (Curry, Thompson and Green) and their relentless style. It’s just that against the agile, mobile Blazers, the W’s weren’t always effective with the defense that forces missed shots and enables the W’s to flow.   

“It wasn’t our best stuff,” agreed Kerr, “but we got it done.”

Which is what the best teams do, the best individuals do. Overcome the mistakes, the questionable officiating, the frustration and win.

“We know what it takes to win in the playoffs,” said Thompson. “It’s extremely hard. Give (the Blazers) credit. They’re an offensive powerhouse. It wasn’t an individual thing when Steph went out (with the injury). We did it collectively ... I’m just proud of my focus on defense ... I’m just trying to get myself in the flow of the offense.

“I’m not going to go out there and try and take the ball from Steph when he’s in the zone.”

Which he almost always is.

Giants: Hard to win when you don’t score

By Art Spander

Bruce Bochy was talking about the little things, about moving a runner, about laying down a bunt. It’s the big thing that’s beating the Giants, an inability to score, whatever which way, a ground out, a home run. And when you can’t score, you can’t win. That’s a sporting truism. And right now, a San Francisco Giants flaw.

Everyone was so worried about Matt Cain, the Giants starter, winless since the middle of last season. What happens if Cain gets battered around as he did in his last start against the Rockies? The question was academic. San Francisco’s offensive woes seem to be endemic. Cain had his best game of the year. So encouraging. The Giants, beaten 4-0 by Toronto on a chilly, Candlestick-type Tuesday night at AT&T Park, had another scoreless round — shut out for the second time in three games.

Three runs over the last four games for the Giants — who somehow won one of those games, but none of the last three. “We ran into some well-pitched games the last two nights,’’ said Bochy. No question. It was lefthander J.A. Happ on Tuesday night for the Blue Jays. He was within one out of his first complete-game shutout in six years. It was righthander Aaron Sanchez on Monday night in the 3-1 win.

“We just need one critical hit,“ said Bochy, “one at bat that works.” Nothing is working for the Giants when they have a bat in their hands. The heart of the order, Buster Posey (0-for-4 including a double play), Hunter Pence (1-for-4) and Brandon Belt (0-for-3 with a walk) seem mystified.

Three days ago, there was near-panic about the fourth and fifth pitchers in the Giants’ rotation, Jake Peavy and Cain. Peavy made it through five innings on Monday night. Not without problems, yet he allowed only three runs. Then Cain was very effective Tuesday, going eight innings — his hadn’t gone more than six in his previous 18 starts — striking out seven, walking none and allowing six hits.

And the Giants couldn’t get a single run. Just as on Sunday they couldn’t get a single run.

In order, the Giants lost 2-0 to the Rockies, 3-1 to the Blue Jays and 4-0 to the Blue Jays. The Bad News Bears weren’t that bad.

“We’ve got to find a way to beat them,” said Bochy. One way is to get people across home plate.

It's hard to knock your pitcher when he’s decent on the mound and botches something when he’s at bat, but in the bottom of the sixth the Giants had runners on first and second with nobody out and their pitcher, Mr. Cain, coming up. Everyone from McCovey Cove to Cooperstown knew he would sacrifice, and he tried, without success.

Cain’s bunt was fielded by Happ, who forced the runner (Jarrett Parker, who had walked). Then leadoff man Denard Span grounded into a double play, the sequence of a team for which everything of late goes wrong — and nobody goes home.

Cain was as upbeat as someone can be when the ballclub is losing.

“I felt like I limited my mistakes,” he said. “We did a good job of keeping those to a minimum. This is something to build off of and carry into the next one.”

Unfortunately, he’s now 0-5 and is winless in 14 consecutive starts.

The bunt? “I didn't get the angle right to third," Cain said. “That's our job as pitchers. We need to be able to execute. That could have changed the game.”

That’s the Giants right now, talking about what might have been, could have and would have. If this had happened... but what did happen was another defeat, and with the homestand ending Wednesday with yet another game against the Blue Jays, San Francisco has a losing record, 17-18.

“I’ve tried to shake things up,” said Bochy, who had Duffy batting sixth instead of second (he was 0-for-3 with a walk). “But our big hitters are cold.”

Maybe they can sign Steph Curry to bat cleanup.

Will Lincecum save Giants after the pounding?

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — It’s all set up for Timmy.  All he has to do is show he still can pitch. Because the fourth and fifth starters in the Giants' rotation haven’t been able to thus far. So if little Tim Lincecum can show he’s a scintilla of what he used to be when he showcases Friday down in the desert, he very well could be the man to get his once (and former?) team out of the wilderness.

Life is timing. And that includes baseball. Who knows whether Lincecum, unsigned after hip surgery last year, still has enough to get batters out in the majors? But over the past two games, Wednesday in Cincinnati and Thursday night in San Francisco, the guys who took the mound for the Giants certainly didn’t. Suddenly there’s a sense of desperation at AT&T, a feeling of “OK, after Mad Bum, Cueto and Samardzija, what can we do?”

As capably demonstrated Thursday night on the banks of McCovey Cove, nothing. Except hope that Timmy still has something from his glory days of Cy Young Awards and that the Giants re-sign him.

On Wednesday at Cincy, Jake Peavy, the No. 4 starter, gave up three home runs in one inning. Then on Thursday night, the Gigantes (hey, it was Cinco de Mayo and that was the name on the uniform) were embarrassed by the Colorado Rockies, 17-7, giving up 13 runs in the fifth.

Yes, that’s been Matt Cain’s obstacle of an inning of late, but never was it as bad as on Thursday when, having been pounded for eight runs and 10 hits, he didn’t even wait for manager Bruce Bochy to take the ball but in a case of virtual surrender reached out and gave it to Bochy.

“We have to find a way to help the rotation like we should,” said Cain, certainly not willing to concede his place. “This is not easy. It’s frustrating.”

Cain had a 2-0 count on Colorado’s Nelson Arenado, with one on and two out in the first. A changeup got out over the plate, and Arenado, one of the game’s better hitters, hit it over the left field fence for his 12th home run of the year. The Rockies, just like that, were up 2-0.

“The biggest thing is to keep trusting myself,” said Cain, who threw a perfect game four years ago, before undergoing surgery in 2014. “My location was good, but the balls were just a little higher than we wanted.”

One game out of 162 can be ignored — in the World Series championship year of 2014, the Dodgers scored 14 in a late-season game against San Francisco — but when two-fifths of your staff are ineffective, you’re in trouble. And maybe in the market for replacements.

“We discussed Timmy,” Bochy said before the game, hardly contemplating what would happen during the game. “(General manager) Bobby Evans can say more about that than me. Timmy still is loved here. There are going to be a lot of teams there watching him. I can’t tell you what is going to happen.”

If the Giants don’t get help by Peavy and or Cain improving — as unlikely as that appears 30 games into the season — San Francisco signing Lincecum or trading for a top-line pitcher is a huge worry. Already the bullpen is a mess, and Vin Mazzaro, just brought up from Triple A, was a disaster after relieving Cain, allowing seven earned runs in a third of an inning.

Bochy was not so quick to dismiss Cain or Peavy. It’s the manager’s nature to keep on a level and never belittle his athletes, although thinking of the 12-run inning by the Mets and the 11-run inning by the Rockies, the manager shook his head. “It’s hit us twice in a week,” he said.

Knowing there may not be anyone better than Peavy or Cain, Bochy said that each of the pitchers, at times, has shown he still deserves to be part of the rotation.

“We just couldn’t get out of that inning,” said Bochy. “I thought our guys had good at bats this game, but the pitching just wasn’t there. Matt’s stuff was fine. It was his execution. He made a few mistakes.”

The question might be whether continuing to send out Peavy and Cain is a mistake. Then again, there may be no other option. Unless Tim Lincecum comes through in his glorified tryout and the Giants subsequently add him to the roster.

“We know our guys,” said Bochy. “We stand behind them. We know they’ll get better.”

They couldn’t get worse.

Ezeli gets Warriors to play like champions they are

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — This is what championship teams do. They play like champions. They find a way to win on a night when the other team’s shots fall but theirs won’t, when their coach gets so irked he hollers at one of his star players, when they fall behind from the opening moments and stay behind until it’s almost too late. This is what the Warriors do.

They weren’t just bad in the first half against the Portland Trail Blazers on Tuesday night at the Oracle, they were awful. There was no defense — heavens, Portland scored 34 points the first quarter — and there barely was any offense. The Warriors fell behind by 17. For the first time in the postseason, the absence of Stephen Curry was all too evident.    

Curry, of course, still had the bad knee and was on the bench. So was backup center Festus Ezeli. His knee, the one on which he had minor surgery in January, supposedly was fine, but Warriors coach Steve Kerr and his staff decided not to play him through the first half — as they decided not to play him anytime Sunday in the first game of the Western Conference semifinals.

Then Kerr got smart. Or desperate. Whatever, he got the 6-foot-11 Ezeli on the floor, and Ezeli, along with Andre Iguodala (who had 15 points, five rebounds and four assists) and Shaun Livingston (14 points, four rebounds and four assists), got the Warriors a 110-99 victory.

They trailed 87-76 after three quarters, meaning the W’s outscored Portland 34-12 in the final 12 minutes. Meaning Ezeli, who had six rebounds and eight points in roughly 13 minutes, Iguodala and Livingston helped the Warriors make the stops as well as the hoops.

It didn’t hurt that Klay Thompson, after some early misses (he was 3 of 9 at the half), finally connected (he was 7 for 20 with 27 points) or Draymond Green (17 points, 14 rebounds) played his expected relentless game.

But Kerr, after the W’s took a two-games-to-none lead in this best-of-seven series, was all too willing to talk about the others, especially Ezeli.

“He changed the whole game with his pick-and-roll defense,” Kerr said of Ezeli. In truth, Kerr changed it by finally allowing Ezeli to get in the game. “And his presence around the rim. The energy he gave us. He played 13 straight minutes.”

After not playing one second through one full game and virtually three quarters of this second game.

“This is a guy who had been out most of the last part of the season,” Kerr said of Ezeli, "and didn’t play much in the (first-round) Houston series. So a phenomenal effort from Fez to really change the game.”

The Warriors were a frantic, stumbling group early on. The Blazers shot like blazes, 66 percent in the first quarter. Fans who were unfamiliar with such happenings chanted and screeched, but it didn’t do much good. Damian Lillard, the Portland guard who grew up in the East Bay, had 25 points through three periods, 17 of those after the half.

But Lillard wouldn’t get a point more. “We played a great three quarters, and they’re a championship team,” said Lillard, in the ultimate summation. "We were in control, and we slipped.”

Big time. The pathetic 12 points scored in the fourth by Portland (on 5-of-19 shooting) was the fewest the Warriors had ever allowed in a quarter since the NBA instituted the 24-second clock in the 1954-55 season.

“They got more aggressive,” Portland coach Terry Stotts said of the Warriors’ late-game effectiveness. “Ezeli came in and had an impact on both ends of the court. Because we couldn’t get the stops, we couldn’t play transition (offense).

“It was disappointing to lose a game that you’re in a position to be in. But we’ve got to close it out.”

This was a huge comeback for the Warriors as they defend the title they won last season. A loss would have left them at one-one and without the home court advantage. The next two games are in Portland, the first on Saturday, and who knows, they could have returned to Oakland down 3-1. Not now.

“Everybody deserves credit,” said Kerr. “Andre kept us in the game in the first half, and Klay stayed with it. Same with Shaun. I think he was one for seven, but on that fadeaway made one of the biggest shots of the game.

“Game twos always scare me, especially if you won the first one relatively easy like we did. It’s human nature. The other team comes out angry, and maybe you let your guard down a little bit.”

It was their backup center who got their guard back. Festus Ezeli was a key to the championship team finally playing like one.

Kerr on Klay: ‘He was awesome’

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — If Steph were there ... Even Draymond Green, who had yet another triple-double, was moved to consider the impossible.

Yes, agreed Green, if Steph Curry had been in uniform, and not on the bench in that sharp, blue sport coat, the Warriors, Green’s Warriors, Steph’s Warriors, “could go toe-to-toe with anybody on offense and probably have the advantage.”

But it’s also understood that the NBA is a league in which success more often is determined not by who makes baskets than by who is unable to make baskets, determined on defense, as preached by Warriors coach Steve Kerr — and he’s hardly alone — andas displayed by the W’s on Sunday in the first game of the NBA Western Conference semifinals.

Again they didn’t have Curry, as was the case at the end of the first-round series against Houston. But again they did have pressure, smothering the Blazers, who made only five of their 21 shots in the first period, building up a lead that was as large as 20 and winning 118-106.

“Our offense, we had trouble scoring,” confirmed Portland coach Terry Stotts. “Their defense got into us.”

Their defense, the Warriors’ D, was Klay Thompson shadowing Damian Lillard, who scored 30 points but was a mediocre 8 for 26 shooting; it was Green blocking two shots and Andrew Bogut three; and it was Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston hindering passes with their extended reaches.

Yes, Thompson hit his shots, 14 of 28 (7 of 14 on threes), and had a game-high 37 points, needed in the absence of Curry. But it was at the other end of the court where Thompson impressed his coach.

“Not many guys could chase Damian Lillard around for 37 minutes,” said Kerr, “and score 37 points too. Klay is a tremendous two-way player, and this was a really amazing night for him just in terms of his all-around play, and obviously we got a lot of good performances from people. But that’s a big burden to have to play both ways like that.

“He was awesome.”

Thompson was an All-Star. Green, 23 points, 13 rebounds and 11 assists, was an All-Star. Sometimes we forget because of that All-Star and MVP — and product endorser and NBA scoring leader — Steph Curry.

Yet a team is more than one man, even if it’s a man who can throw in 30-foot jumpers in the blink of an eye.

Curry, restricted by that bad right knee, said in a TV interview he would be surprised if he couldn’t return by game three of this series, next Sunday at Portland. Until then, or even then, the Warriors have to do what they’ve been doing, use all their skills.

“Defense is the key against these guys,” said Kerr, knowing full well “these guys” could mean any team in the league.

“They,” Kerr said of the Blazers, “are a tremendous offensive team. They have a great system. They are hard to guard, and they spread out so much with their shooting that there are a lot of open lanes.”

Those lanes were closed Sunday, just as stretches of Interstate 880 are so often. The Warriors chased and harassed. The Warriors stymied and baffled. “We score a lot of points,” Lillard said of himself and teammate C.J. McCollum. “We’ve got to be better offensively if we want to have a chance against this team.”

That doesn’t come easily against the Warriors, schooled in the idea of taking the other team’s mistakes and pushing the ball down the floor. “Our offense,” said Kerr, “comes off movement. We can’t stand around.”

Green rarely is seen standing or heard silent. He’s the voice of the Warriors, cheering, chanting, hollering.  Still, it’s just as much a case of "do as I do" as it is "do as I say." Green leads by admonition. He leads by example.

“I don’t go out there saying, ‘I’ve got to do this, I’ve got to do more of that,’” said Green. “We all have to. Everybody’s got to be more involved on the offensive end. Steph brings so much more to the table that one guy isn’t going to be able to do what he does.

“I just told the guys that we’ve got to come out with a defensive mind-set, and that’s pretty much it. I think we can pretty much just stay solid and get good stuff on the offensive end, but against this team we’ve got to get it done on the defensive end. We’ll get what we need on offense. We did that tonight.”

Absolutely.

S.F. Examiner: Warriors send hapless Rockets home with Curry wearing a suit coat

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

The next round won’t be this easy. It can’t be. The Warriors are good, very good, record-setting good, and the Houston Rockets were, well, not very good at all. The Rockets probably shouldn’t have been in the playoffs.

For certain they weren’t at all in Wednesday night’s game. Figuratively, of course. Literally, that’s open for debate.

Read the full story here.

©2016 The San Francisco Examiner

S.F. Examiner: Optimism escapes Bochy as Giants lose fifth-straight

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

He’s normally a man of silver linings and orange-and-black optimism. Bruce Bochy has spent a career believing everything’s not as grim as the rest of you would think. But there was a different Bochy after the Giants, his San Francisco’s Giants, were smacked around again Thursday by the Arizona Diamondbacks, a Bochy whose frustration could be sensed, whose disappointment could be heard.

Baseball, we’re told, is a game of ups and downs. There have been no ups for the Giants of late.

Read the full story here.

©2016 The San Francisco Examiner 

S.F. Examiner: With Steph, without Steph, Warriors win as a team

By Art Spander

They missed Steph Curry. What, you thought the Warriors wouldn’t? But the Warriors didn’t set the all-time record for regular-season victories — 73, as you know so well — because they were dependent on only one player, even if he is the MVP.

They are a team, and what they didn’t miss Monday night at Oracle was a chance again to beat the Houston Rockets.

Read the full story.

©2016 The San Francisco Examiner

A’s pull a number on the Royals

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — He was wearing a Warriors T-shirt, as seemingly half the Bay Area is these days, the gold one passed out a day before, the one reading “Strength in Numbers.” But for Chris Bassitt, a Cleveland Cavaliers fan under that shirt — understandably, since he’s from Ohio — there was only one number Sunday, 114, the career-high number of pitches he threw for the Athletics.

He didn’t get a win for that effort, but the A’s did, beating the World Series champion Kansas City Royals 3-2, and suddenly everything was as joyful and upbeat at the Coliseum as it had been some 24 hours earlier next door at Oracle Arena.

The weather was the best of the weeks-old baseball season, only 70 degrees at first pitch but climbing to 79 at the final out of an efficient, tidy game that required only 2 hours 37 minutes. The A’s closed out a home stand that began with four straight losses and ended with two wins, both over K.C., of course. And the stadium, often as lonely as a graveyard at midnight, was nearly full, 29,668 fans, after 25,584 on Saturday.

John Axford got the pitching victory. He was the one in the lineup when, in the bottom of the eighth, Billy Burns tripled down the right field line. “It was this close to going foul,”  said Burns, pinching his fingers together, “and that close to being caught.” Burns then scored the tie-breaking, winning run on pinch hitter Josh Reddick’s sacrifice fly.

But the 6-foot-5 Bassitt was no less responsible for the victory than anyone in the Oakland clubhouse. He went the first seven innings, giving up two runs, one a homer by Mike Moustakas. “I was not committed on the pitch,” said Bassitt. That’s acceptable. The A’s — every team in the majors — would delight in their starter allowing only two runs.  

Sunshine and success alter everything at the Coliseum. Maybe it’s not AT&T Park, and yes, the A’s still need a ballpark, but with blue skies the figurative atmosphere is changed. So too are the A’s fortunes. Now, one game below .500, they head to New York for three games at Yankee Stadium.

“We’ve got some momentum,” said Burns. “Scratching out a win against (the Royals) is big.”

The Royals pride themselves on their late-inning relief. Their template for winning the World Series was to get through the sixth inning in front or tied, then call on a bullpen some would say is the best in the majors. So A’s manager Bob Melvin was particularly pleased the way his team, trailing 2-1 into the seventh, rallied to tie and win.

“Coming back against this team is something,” said Melvin. “Typically, in the seventh, eighth and ninth, it’s a big challenge.”

So many games in baseball, 162, and yet this one game, especially at home, where the A’s were 2-7, the second-worst home record in the American League, was important. Teams need to do well at home to make believers of the ticket buyers. People want to leave a ballpark in a good mood. And Sunday at the Coliseum, most of the people did.

“We’d been struggling at home,” confirmed Melvin. “Now we’re going on a 10-game trip against good teams.” Those teams, in order, are the Yankees, Blue Jays and Tigers. “This was significant,” Melvin added.

Ryan Madson pitched the ninth to get his fourth save (and the A’s only have six wins).

“He did the job,” said Melvin the onetime catcher.

Which Madson considered ordinary, or at least nothing out of the usual. Just get on the mound and throw strikes, whether it’s the Royals — with whom he won a World Series last season — or the Mariners. “The idea,” said Madson, “is to keep the pressure on the hitters.”

The pressure’s been on the A’s in many ways. They’ll always be in the shadow of the club across the Bay until they get that ballpark and then have the revenue to retain their stars. Also, having bottomed out in 2015, the Athletics need to prove they’ve put together a team that can win and also be attractive, not that one doesn’t follow the other.

So there’s Bassitt, wearing his shirt for the most attractive, winningest team in the region — and in basketball — that of the Warriors. “I’ll root for them until the finals,” said Bassitt, who played at the University of Akron, close to Cleveland. “Then I’ll root for the Cavs.”

Everybody makes mistakes.

Warriors roll with the punches, roll over Rockets

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — These are the playoffs, when basketball changes from ballet to boxing, when defenses rule and physical play is not only tolerated it is expected. So when Patrick Beverley smacked Stephen Curry early on in Saturday’s first-round game between the Warriors and Houston Rockets and the sellout crowd at Oracle Arena booed and hollered, the men on the floor and bench all but shrugged.

“No, there was nothing dirty,” said Warriors coach Steve Kerr responding to a question on how to explain the style. “It’s the playoffs. There was nothing dirty. Just two teams that want to win. So there were a few physical plays. So that’s to be expected.”

Also to be expected was a Warriors win — after all, the W’s were 3-0 this regular season against Houston and 11-1 over the last two seasons, playoffs included. Expectations were met in grand style, with the W’s, in arguably their best defensive performance in a year, building a 29-point lead and winning, 104-78.

Not to be expected was Stephen Curry twisting the right ankle that used to give him problems — the official description was “a tweak" — and for his own precaution being held out for all but three minutes of the second half. Despite Curry pleading with Kerr. “I was 0-for-3,” Curry said of his attempts to persuade the coach.

Where it mattered, on field goal attempts, he was 8 for 13 (5 of 7 on three-pointers) and so still ended up as the top scorer for either team with 24 points.

Game two of this best-of-seven series is Monday night at Oracle, and the only question is whether Curry, who was limping as he left the post-game interview room, will be ready. Kerr used the description “questionable,” a fall-back phrase of indecision — but the man himself said, “Right now I don’t see a scenario where I’ll be out.”

Time to exhale? Probably. Early on this year one might have said, “Time to McHale,” but Kevin McHale, the Rockets coach, was canned in early November and replaced by J.B. Bickerstaff, who contended that Houston didn’t move around on offense when pressured by a great Warrior defense.

It was a physical game, yes, but it also was strange game. The Rockets’ James Harden, who was second in the NBA in scoring (29 points a game compared to Curry’s 30.1) and led in free throw attempts (he’s clever at making people foul him), had only 17 points and didn’t try a single, solitary foul shot, something that hadn’t happened since January 2015.

“Yeah,” said Kerr of Harden’s blank. “That’s what he does better than anybody in the league, get to the line, draw fouls. So I thought Klay (Thomson) and Andre (Iguodala) did a great job. Our bigs stayed vertical. They didn’t reach when (Harden) came into the paint.”

It’s a given in sports that defense wins, because it’s easier to keep the other team from scoring than to score yourself, to win a game 3-2 in baseball, 14-10 in football or, as the Warriors did Saturday, holding the opposition to under 80 points, the Rockets not even reaching the 20-point figure in three of the four quarters.

Kerr had said Friday he thought the Warriors were playing their best defense of the year, and so he wasn’t at all surprised when they jumped out to a 33-15 first-period lead, Houston making only six of 20 attempts, a pathetic 30 percent.

“I thought defense was excellent,” said the head coach. “We didn’t reach. We made them earn every point. We did have the brief moment when Steph went out and we lost our poise and lost our focus a little bit, but we quickly recovered.”

Curry had 16 in the first quarter (or one more than the entire Houston team), despite Beverley grabbing and shoving. When Curry shoved back it seemed there would be a fight — memories of Mike Riordan and Rick Barry in the 1975 finals — but a technical foul against each player ended that.

Curry, however, didn’t injure his ankle until just before halftime. “I just tried to change direction,” he said of what occurred. “Missed the shot and tried to get back on defense, and then slipped a little bit and felt it slip or tweak. That’s when the pain kind of came in. I was able to do a couple more possessions, and it started to get a little worse.”

Off he came. “As a competitor, I was ready to go back in,” he said.

He didn’t go back, and of course the post-game conversation dealt with the possibility of the Warriors having to play without the guy who was MVP last season and most likely will be again this season.

“Well, you lose the MVP of the NBA,” said Draymond Green, who some might say at times is the MVP of the Warriors, “it definitely changes your team, so there is some concern. Hopefully when we play again, he’ll be fine. If not, it’s the same mentality we’ve had throughout the year. He can’t go, next man up.”   

In other words, if you’ll pardon the expression, just keep punching along.

Warriors historic but can’t get a Sunday playoff slot

By Art Spander

They’re not the Knicks, or the Celtics. Or the Lakers. They’re merely the best team in pro basketball, the team that on a historic Wednesday night set a record for the most wins ever in an NBA season. Yet, perhaps because of their geographical location, or maybe because they still aren’t taken seriously, the Warriors do not get respect due a champion.

Moments after the W’s crushed the Memphis Grizzlies, 125-104, at the Oracle, head coach Steve Kerr learned they would be opening the playoffs Saturday afternoon, which is known as the worst possible viewing period on TV. And as a onetime commentator, Kerr was well aware of the slight.

“I always thought the Sunday time slot was the coveted TV slot,” Kerr remarked. “But maybe that’s changed, because two years in a row we’re playing Saturday afternoon. So very little time to prepare. But obviously, the same goes for Houston.”

But Houston isn’t the defending NBA champion. Houston didn’t finish a regular season with 73 wins (73-9) breaking the record of 72 set by the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, on which Kerr and Michael Jordan played. The Warriors, who won all three games from Houston during the regular season, are the attraction — but apparently not that much of an attraction.

Unless it’s the Lakers, the people in the NBA, at ESPN, at TBS, have little regard for franchises in the Pacific time zone. The folks in Brentwood and Beverly Hills are sophisticated. Up north? Have you seen those people parading on Market Street or Telegraph?

Of course, when and where should be inconsequential when compared to who and what, and the who and what of the NBA are the Warriors and what they’ve done. So, Kobe Bryant’s farewell was classic Hollywood. He scored 60 in a game that meant nothing except that it was a last hurrah. But Steph Curry scored 46 for the Warriors — and set a season mark of 402 three-pointers, after hitting 10 of 19 attempts — in a game that for the 19,596 spectators, the 175th straight sellout, meant everything.

It likewise meant a great deal to the Warriors players. And so, as they’ve done so often this season, they grabbed it early, building a 20-point lead before the second quarter was done.

“I told our guys I never in a million years would have guessed that record would be broken,” said Kerr. “I thought it was like DiMaggio’s hit streak, really, and I was wrong.”

That’s because his players treat basketball for what it essentially is, a game. They play with élan, with joy. They’re like high school kids out for a good time as well as for wins, and throughout they’ve had both.

“But I will say the same thing now I said 20 years ago,” Kerr offered. “I don’t think this will ever be broken. Somebody’s got to go 74-8, and I don’t see it. I hope our fans aren’t expecting that next year.”

Right now they’re expecting a second straight championship. For good reason. The Warriors play fearless, if not exactly flawless, basketball. They can shoot you to bits — they were 52 percent on field goals and 42 percent (20 of 47) on three-pointers. They can play effective defense, which experts will tell you is where games are won. And they have the confidence born of success.

There was no possibility the Warriors were going to lose last night. By the early part of the third quarter, the only way the W’s were going to lose was to hit two balls into the water on the 12th hole. OK, an obscure analogy, but we’re not that far removed from the Masters.

When asked if with Steph’s and the team’s numbers — Curry didn’t get off the bench in the fourth period — this was as close to perfection as imaginable, Klay Thompson gave a flip answer that was as close to perfection as possible.

“If I would have shot 25 more threes and got to 300, yes,” quipped Thomson, who scored 16, “but I’m amazed by Steph, especially as a shooter. To get to 400 threes in a season, that’s hard to put into words. That’s hard to do ... so congrats to Steph and the 14 other guys in the locker room. We fought hard and didn’t take a night off all year.”

Someone asked Curry the difference between the 2016 Warriors and the 1996 Bulls — not that he would know, since he wasn’t even out of elementary school 20 years ago. 

“I think the game has evolved a lot,” said Curry, “but we have a certain identity of how we play.”

Which by the Bay is considered state-of-the-art but elsewhere isn’t good enough to get them a Sunday spot in the opening round of the playoffs.

Global Golf Post: Langer Makes A Run For The Aged

By Art Spander
Global Golf Post

AUGUSTA, GEORGIA — The fantasy evaporated almost as quickly as it had appeared. "It's going to happen," Bernhard Langer had promised. But not at this Masters and not for Langer, as gallantly as he played, an old man, 58, against the young and in a sense against himself.

"Sooner or later," Langer said. "Someone over 50 is going to win a major."

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2016 Global Golf Post

Newsday (N.Y.): At 58, Bernhard Langer is only two shots back in the Masters

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

AUGUSTA, Ga. — The game teases, beckons and most of all equalizes. A 300-yard drive shows up on the scorecard as one stroke, the same as a two-foot putt. And so Bernhard Langer at age 58, 30 years older than his playing partner Jason Day — the No. 1 player in the world — is a contender in the Masters.

Langer won his first Masters in 1985, two years before Day was born. He won his second Masters in 1993, four months before Jordan Spieth was born. The ageless German shot a two-under par 70 Saturday in the third round and his 54-hole total of 215 is tied for third two shots behind Spieth.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2016 Newsday. All rights reserved.

McIlroy looking at Masters numbers, not names

By Art Spander

AUGUSTA, Ga. — It’s a game where you hope to have control of yourself but understand you have no control over your opponents. In golf, you may be your own worst enemy. Or best friend.

“I don’t really look at the names on the left of the leaderboard,” said Rory McIlroy, who is one of those names. “I’m looking at the number to see how many shots I’m back.”

It was six shots after eight holes of the second round of this 80th Masters on Friday. And even though he wasn’t looking at the name, the rest of us couldn’t help but look, because it belonged to the defending champion, Jordan Spieth.

Six shots behind Spieth, who was sweeping over Augusta National like the chill wind that blew in from the west. Then, whoosh, like that, one shot.

“The comfortable thing for me,” said McIlroy, “is knowing that even if you are five or six shots back, things can change quite quickly. I’ve been on the opposite end where things can start to get away from you.”

The opposite end, the failure, the collapse, the round that leaves the golfer shaken and the critics gasping and harping.

Five years ago, at the 2011 Masters, McIlroy, the Northern Irishman, was in front after three days of well-played golf. Then he shot 80, eight over par, and tumbled so far, into a tie for 15th. To this day, he still lacks a Masters victory to complete the cycle of wins in all four majors.

“But that gives me confidence,” said McIlroy of closing the gap, “knowing that if you are a little bit behind, you can definitely make a comeback.”

After two rounds in a tournament that in a few hours went from decided to dramatic, he is only a stroke behind. He shot one-under 71 to Spieth’s 74. He is at three-under 141 to Spieth’s four-under 140. Change so quickly, McIlroy insisted.

Spieth was eight under, then after the 18th four under. McIlroy was one under after his eighth and three under after the 18th.

“You know,” said McIlroy, “unless someone is playing exceptionally well and really distances themselves from the field, everything sort of evens out.”

That’s the joy of golf. And the agony. There are no sure things, no playing safe, running the fullback up the middle, walking the cleanup hitter with nobody on so he can’t hurt you. In golf, you hurt yourself.

Didn’t Greg Norman begin the final round in 1996 six shots in front and finish second to Nick Faldo by five shots? Didn’t Jeff Maggert lead by two shots after three rounds in 2003 and end up fifth, five back of winner Mike Weir?

“You’re always going to make mistakes here and there,” said McIlroy, “and it all evens out at the end of the week ... A lot can happen.”

A lot happened to Spieth on this day when the sun shone but the temperature never made it out of the 60s — but unfortunately for their scoring, too many of the players did. Nobody in the top 10, Spieth, McIlroy, Danny Lee, Brandt Snedeker, Sergio Garcia or the rest, broke 70.

“It’s Augusta National,” reminded McIlroy, as if any of us needed reminding, “and in conditions like this, with pin positions the way they were, it was tough, and I just needed to stay patient.”

McIlroy is only a month from his 27th birthday, but he is wise beyond his years, especially about the game that is his business. He’s won a U.S. Open, in record fashion, a British Open and two PGA Championships. He’s stumbled here deep in the Georgia pines. He’s handled the triumphs and defeats like a gentleman, every bit as impressive as his 320-yard tee shots.

“I want to win this golf tournament,” said McIlroy, “and I want to finish on the lowest score possible, and whoever is ahead of me, I just want to finish one shot better.”

One shot, the margin by which he how trails the leader. One shot, which can be the result of his own birdie or a bogey by the man whom he had trailed.

McIlroy had been No. 1 in the world rankings but now is No. 3, behind Jason Day and Spieth. In theory, they constitute what so many of us at the moment call the Big Three of golf.

“I can’t get wrapped up in that and buy into the Big Three,” said McIlroy. “Of course it’s great for the game, but when I’m out there playing and competing that’s absolutely not what I should be thinking about.

“I should be concentrating on myself and thinking about what I need to do to win this golf tournament, regardless of who else is up there.”

Which, of course, is the only way to beat everyone else who is up there.

For Spieth, who talks in plural, a singular Masters round

By Art Spander

AUGUSTA, Ga. — He speaks in the plural, as if what Jordan Spieth does in golf, that most individual of games, is like football or basketball, with handoffs, screens or other group efforts. Spieth has a teacher and caddy, certainly, yet only he drives the balls or sinks the putts.

Spieth’s frequent use of “we” in talking about his brilliant 66 Thursday, when he began the quest for a second straight Masters, brings to mind the comment of Mark Twain, who contended: “Only kings, presidents, editors and people with tapeworms have the right to use editorial ‘we.’“

Twain also was the man who said, “Golf is a good walk spoiled,” a viewpoint destroyed by the manner in which Mr. Spieth plays. So Jordan’s choice of words become inconsequential when judged against his choice of clubs and his scores.

Having won the 2015 Masters with a 72-hole score of 270 (18 under par) that tied the tournament record set by Tiger Woods in 1997, Spieth was on course — Augusta National, that is — to become the first back-to-back winner since Woods in 2001 and 2002.

“We must stay patient with what we’re doing,” said Spieth of a philosophy and strategy he makes seem like governmental planning or a kingly degree. Twain would cringe, perhaps, but he’d delight in the round with six birdies and no bogeys.

“We know how to win this golf tournament,” Spieth added.

We — uh, he — definitely does. And other tournaments as well. In 2015, Spieth became the first golfer in 43 years, since Jack Nicklaus, to win the first two majors. Then he missed a playoff for the third, the British Open, by a shot.

“We believed in our process,” said Spieth, “and if the putts are dropping, then hopefully it goes our way.”

Meaning his way. meaning the way of young man who won’t be 23 until July.

Spieth does get plenty of advice and encouragement from his caddy, the onetime intermediate school teacher Michael Greller. And there has been more than a decade of instruction from Cameron McCormick of Brook Hollow Country Club in Dallas. Still, no matter how you practice and what you’re told, you — not we — swing the clubs and make the birdies or, rare as they were for Spieth on Day One of the 80th Masters, bogeys.

Great golfers have greater egos, because they must. Self-belief is a requisite in a sport where nature and opponents over which one has no control can beat you and beat you down. Golfers lose confidence as fast as they can lose a ball in a pond. Spieth, however, appears wonderfully humble. If we’re impressed with Jordan 
Spieth, he doesn’t act impressed with himself.

On Tuesday, in a pre-tournament interview, Spieth was explaining how “cool” it was to enter the champions locker room upstairs in the Augusta National clubhouse — the room restricted to winners — and see his name on a plaque and find he was sharing a locker with the immortal Arnold Palmer. “A pleasant surprise," he described it.

It’s no surprise that Spieth is atop the leader board. He knows the course. He knows his game. He also knows the unpredictability of golf, where a gust of wind — and it was blowing on Thursday — or a bizarre bounce can affect a score either positively or negatively.

“I would have signed for two under (Thursday),” said Spieth, this time sticking to first person, “and not even played the round, knowing the conditions that were coming up, Got a lot out of the round with what I felt was average ball-striking. Just scored the ball extremely well, which is something I’ve been struggling with this season.”

A year ago, Spieth began with an eight-under-par 64 and never backed up or backed away.

“The way I was playing," he said, "I would say I was better a year ago, but the score that came out of the round may have been impressive today ... so I’m just very pleased with it.”

Spieth had a chance in 2014, then had a victory in 2015, and someone wondered if there is an innate comfort level when he tees up on a historic course deep in the Georgia pines.

“The fact I didn’t make any bogeys, with the kind of loose — I just didn’t feel confident after the first couple mid-iron shots I hit. The good news out here is so much of it is feel-based, where you have so many different slopes you’re hitting off. It’s most important what the ball does at impact, and I felt like I was still here.

“I enjoy this tournament more than anywhere else. It’s easy for us. We don’t have many distractions in our preparation.”

That would be us as in Jordan Spieth, a man without tapeworms but who excels at golf with a kingly manner.