By Art Spander
Global Golf Post
OAKMONT, PENNSYLVANIA — He had telegraphed his feelings clearly upon arrival. "I'm obviously excited to be here," Rory McIlroy told us a few days earlier at Oakmont. But now after missing the cut he wasn't saying anything other than, "I'm not talking."
Copyright 2016 Global Golf Post
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
The crowd had come for a coronation, a celebration, an evening of noise and joy on which their basketball team, the Warriors, the record setters, the defending champions, would make it two titles in row, would start an NBA dynasty. But something was missing — maybe because someone was missing, Draymond Green.
And so the noise ebbed, the joy diminished. The coronation was put on hold.
©2016 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
There’s only one winner. As we know so well. And so painfully, if the players we choose, the team we choose, is not that winner. Then too often, that ultimate loss, in the Wimbledon final, in the Super Bowl or in this instance for the San Jose Sharks in the Stanley Cup, overwhelms all the bliss and the results that went before.
©2016 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
SAN FRANCISCO — Bruce Bochy told us it was just a game. Of course, that was before it was played. That was two hours before the first pitch, and a reporter wondered if the Giants against the Red Sox would give both teams, particularly San Francisco, the chance to find out whether each was as good as some thought.
Including the players.
“Same thing when the Cubs came in,” said Bochy, the Giants manager. “What these guys (his Giants) have been through, I don’t think they have to measure themselves against anybody.” Then he added, “This is a tough group, Boston.”
Very tough. And if the game, which the Sox won 5-3 in 10 cold innings Tuesday night at AT&T Park, wasn’t a measure, for the Giants it had to be a disappointment — and proof that missed tags and wild throws will beat you just as quickly as big hits.
No, this one wasn’t ordinary. Maybe no game involving the Red Sox is ordinary. Boston people can’t get out of their city quick enough. They go to Florida, to California, everywhere.
But if they leave the premises, they don’t leave their fanaticism for the old town team. They take great delight in overwhelming visiting ballparks, chanting “Let’s go Boston,” and generally acting as if the Red Sox had never traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees.
It’s one thing when, say, the Boston expatriates fill the normally empty seats at the Oakland Coliseum when the Red Sox face the A’s. But to see them swarming sold out AT&T is a bit unnerving. The place looked and sounded like Fenway West.
“Boston has a huge following,” Bochy as much as warned pre-game when asked if this two-game series were special, “and so do we. Both are storied franchises that have been very successful the past decade. It creates interest. These two teams are having great years.”
The most recent part of the Giants’ year has been less than great. San Francisco now has dropped three straight, two on the road to the St. Louis Cardinals and then the return home against the Red Sox.
“The little things hurt us,” said Bochy. He meant catcher Trevor Brown throwing the ball into center field on Jackie Bradley Jr.’s steal in the seventh, then on a ground ball to short by pinch hitter David Ortiz, the runner from first, Chris Young, eluding the tag by a diving Brandon Crawford. What looked like it could have been a double play instead was only a single out, and Bradley dashed in from third to tie the game, 3-3.
In the 10th, with Santiago Casilla working his second inning for the Giants, Boston’s Mookie Betts laid down a bunt with two on and no one out — and beat it out. “We didn’t handle that one,” said Bochy. Not at all.
The Giants did get the runner from third on a force at home, but then with two strikes Xander Bogaerts blooped a ball in front of center fielder Denard Span, driving in the game-winners.
If there was any consolation for the Giants, it was the pitching of Albert Suarez, making his second start of the season. “We just want him to give us a chance,” Bochy said before the game. “I hope he throws like he did in his last start.”
He threw better, allowing only five hits, one walk and two earned runs in 6 1/3 innings. “Albert did a great job,” affirmed Bochy.
Which most of us wouldn’t say about Casilla, although Bochy wasn’t critical of his closer, especially since he pitched more than the normal one inning. Sandy Leon led off the 10th with a double, however, and Casilla and the Giants were in trouble.
“That’s a tough lineup,” said Bochy of the Red Sox. “They lead the majors in offense and scoring. I thought our pitching did a very good job.”
When someone wondered if he might change his closer, Bochy all but shrugged. “I still have confidence in Casilla,” he said.
By Art Spander
SAN JOSE — What are the Sharks going to say? That they’re not as good as the Pittsburgh Penguins — which, obviously, they’re not. Athletes never say that, even though deep down, beneath the beards and the clichés, they may think that way.
Instead, they tell us what we’ve heard dozens of times from teams in a hole — mainly that they just need a break or, more precisely, a goal.
Just need to play from in front, something that in the first Stanley Cup final of their quarter-century history, the San Jose Sharks have been unable to do.
They did win the third game in overtime on Saturday. But those few seconds that led to eternity marked the only time in four games, including Monday night’s 3-1 loss, that the Sharks held a lead.
The Penguins were favored in this final, and it’s easy to understand why. They skate better, score faster and keep control. Four games, the last two here at SAP, where the enthusiasm of the sellout crowds diminished as the periods mounted — reality can crush even the most optimistic of fans — and there’s no mistaking a trend. Or a mismatch.
So strange the comparisons between the Bay Area’s two teams in the finals, the Warriors, rolling along in the NBA over a Cleveland Cavaliers squad that is saying it just needs to perform as normal, and the Sharks, being rolled over — all right, skated over — and uttering the same responses.
This doesn’t mean either the Sharks or Cavs are to be keel-hauled by that awful description, loser, because how can you be a loser if the team has won enough to reach the final step? It’s just that the media and the fans put so much stock in championships that sometimes the character and success that had everyone gleeful is abruptly discounted.
Sure, the Sharks could win the next game, Thursday in Pittsburgh, but also it could snow Thursday in San Jose. Neither will happen. Yes, as Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said matter-of-factly, the games have been close — Game 4 on Monday was the only one decided by more than one goal — but that emphasizes even more the difference between the teams.
The Penguins find ways to win the close games. That’s the ultimate mark of a champion.
“We’ve got to find a way to get on the board early,” DeBoer said. Exactly. But why would they be able to do it now when they couldn’t four consecutive games?
The only thing that’s certain is if they don’t have the lead when the next game is over, the series is over, and the Sharks will be standing there at the handshake contemplating next year.
Maybe they already are. Joe Pavelski, who played so many years before reaching the Cup final, implied that the Sharks on occasion have been virtual spectators, maybe overwhelmed by playing on the NHL’s biggest stage.
“Sometimes the players didn’t make the play,” he said. “You want to keep it simple.” You’ve heard it before in other sports: the Super Bowl is just a football game, the U.S. Open just a golf tournament. But when you’ve never been there after waiting your whole career, years and years, to get there, the approach is different — not necessarily frenzied, but less focused. Or too focused, not relaxed.
After the game, too many of the Sharks used the word “if” in their conversations with the media. If they had capitalized on the passing early on. If they had played the first and second periods as intensely and aggressively as they did the third, when they got their lone goal, by Melker Karlsson, well ... you know the rest of the comment.
But they didn’t, because the Penguins, who locked it up with that third goal after Karlsson’s score, wouldn’t let them.
“We have to find ways to get the first goal,” said the Sharks' Logan Couture. “We haven’t played our best hockey. I think everyone has another level they can rely on.”
Said DeBoer: “We’ve been chasing the lead the whole series.”
The lead and the Penguins.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
OAKLAND, Calif. — This is a basketball team at its best, mentally, physically, emotionally. A basketball team that may or may not be the finest in history but certainly is remarkable after winning a record 73 games in the regular season and the first two games of the NBA Finals so impressively.
Once the Golden State Warriors got it rolling Sunday night at Oracle Arena, where the chants of “Warriors . . . Warriors” poured down as the baskets poured in, they became an even heavier favorite to win a second straight championship.
Copyright © 2016 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
Strength in numbers, indeed. If it isn’t Steph, it’s Klay. If it isn’t Klay, it’s Andre. If it isn’t Andre, well, Sunday night, when the Warriors looked like the greatest basketball team in the history of the universe — hey, what’s a little exaggeration among admirers? — it was Draymond.
©2016 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
OAKLAND, Calif. — Around him, on the floor of Oracle Arena, men from the team for which Jerry West now works as a consultant were shooting basketballs. And you knew West, who a few days ago turned 78, so wished he was one of them.
West, whose graceful dribble became the model for the NBA’s logo, is knowledgeable, opinionated, supportive, appreciative. In a way, he’s responsible for the success of the Warriors, who on Sunday night will attempt to build a 2-0 lead over the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals.
Copyright © 2016 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
So why should we be surprised by anything — and that’s anything — Andre Iguodala does, or maybe considering the (ooh!) low grab, intentional or unintentional by the Cavs’ Matthew Dellavedova, by anything that’s done to Iggy?
This is dog-bites-man stuff, the fact Iguodala can enter a game and as calmly and reflectively as he pointed out, play like every small detail matters. Which of course in playoff basketball, it does. Iguodala is not the only reason the Warriors won the opener of the NBA finals from the Cleveland Cavaliers, 104-89, but surely is a prime reason.
©2016 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
It was Steph. It was defense. It was Shaun. It was the crowd. It was bedlam. It was the Warriors at their finest, Oracle at its noisiest, and basketball at its most hectic, frantic pace, sending Northern California into a Golden State of euphoria and the defending champions to the NBA finals a second-straight year.
By all rights, and most odds, the wonderful, unorthodox, irrepressible Dubs, shouldn’t be there. Shouldn’t even have been in that hysterical seventh game Monday night, in which showing the courage and remarkable distance shooting skill which have become their trademarks, they defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder, 96-88.
©2016 The San Francisco Examiner
By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner
Hi, Draymond, and welcome back to our world, really to your world, the one where you didn’t so much work basketball as play it. The world from where you mysteriously left sometime during Game 3 of the NBA Western Conference Finals at Oklahoma City and then voila, returned Thursday night in Game 5 at the “Roaracle.”
Where was the passing, the rebounding, the leadership? Where were you? Someone suggested you had gone to a parallel universe. Even you conceded, “I was on another planet somewhere.”
©2016 The San Francisco Examiner
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.
©2016 The San Francisco Examiner
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.”
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.
Copyright © 2016 Newsday. All rights reserved.
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.
Copyright © 2016 Newsday. All rights reserved.
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.
©2016 The San Francisco Examiner
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.
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.
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.
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.