Just another game for Giants — and just another loss

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By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — Just another game. That’s what it was for the Giants. Another game and, yes, another defeat, if at home as opposed to the one the day before on the road.

For the Giants, it is obvious, it doesn’t matter who they play or where they play — or in many games, how they play.

In fact, Monday night they played well, relatively speaking. They had fine pitching, especially by starter Drew Pomeranz. He made only one mistake. At another time, the mistake is irrelevant. But for the Giants of 2019, there are no irrelevant mistakes.

The Colorado Rockies beat the Giants, 2-0, Monday night at Oracle Park. The runs came on a home run in the third by David Dahl with Charlie Blackmon on second. Blackmon had a bloop double and Dahl’s homer barely cleared the left field fence.

But those guys can hit. They’re both batting .300-something. Nobody on the Giants can hit, other than Pablo Sandoval. Which is why San Francisco scored no runs after scoring only two runs on Sunday against the Diamondbacks.

Two runs in 18 innings. Not exactly overwhelming.

Just another game in what sadly isn’t going to be just another season. It’s not even July and the Giants are 11 games under .500.

Attendance already is rotten (tickets sold Monday night, 30,018; people in house, maybe 20,000). Where do the Giants go from here?

The main man, Larry Baer, is supposed be back from his suspension at the end of the month to provide leadership. Is it too late to sign Bryce Harper? Sorry.

Giants manager Bruce Bochy came out to face the media after this one, as he always does every game. Poor Bruce, in this lame-duck season. Poor Giants, in this going-nowhere season.

Bochy has too much class to be rude or abrasive like Mickey Callaway of the Mets, a franchise at war with itself. So Bruce simply offers platitudes and occasionally, as when asked why in the fifth he pinch hit for Pomeranz — who equaled a career-high with 11 strikeouts — an explanation.

It was a necessity, that’s why. There was a runner on second — Joe Panik had doubled — and one out. Brandon Belt became the batter instead of Pomeranz and walked. But then Mike Yastrzemski and Alex Dickerson each struck out.

Yaz and Dickerson could be part of the new wave, if there is going to be a new wave. Each came up from Sacramento within the past few weeks. Might as well learn what they can do. When you’re not very good, why not make some changes?

The dreaded Dodgers keep hitting home runs and winning. About the only thing the Giants seem able to hit is rock bottom. 

In the seventh, with Panik on first and two outs Yastrzemski doubled to left. Panik was sent home. You have to gamble now and then. The throw clearly beat the runner who was called out, but might have been safe. The Giants can’t win games. The Giants can’t win TV replay decisions, either.

“I didn’t look at it,” said Bochy. “It was that close. The ball beat him, but I don’t know about the tag.” The officials back in New Jersey, doing the review, knew about the tag. Or thought they did.

Pomeranz has been inconsistent this year, but he was sharp Monday night. So, unfortunately for the Giants, was Colorado starter Jon Gray, who in six innings gave up just four hits.

“I just simplified my approach,” said Pomeranz. “I quit trying to set up guys. I didn’t want to walk guys.” On Monday night, he walked two.

“On the home run, I was trying to stay in on him and it just kind of cut back to the middle of the plate. That’s the one pitch I’ll probably think about the rest of the night. That’s baseball. Sometimes it happens, and sometimes one pitch decides the game.”

Even when it’s just another game.

Newsday (N.Y.): Aging Phil Mickelson not in mix on a favorite venue in the tournament he most wants to win

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By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — The familiar line about aging in golf is that the ball doesn’t know how old you are. Your body does, certainly. And as in every sport, the ultimate winner eventually proves to be Father Time.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2019 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson celebrated but not in hunt at U.S. Open

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By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — For Phil Mickelson it was a round of nostalgia. For Tiger Woods it was one of staying relevant. Others were leading this 119th U.S. Open on Saturday, but for a few hours early on Phil and Tiger were the attractions.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2019 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Tiger on Durant’s injury: ‘As athletes, we’ve all been there’

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By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Tiger Woods was watching along with the rest of us. Kevin Durant had pulled up after another injury. It was a blow to the Warriors and certainly Durant. It also was a jolting reminder to Woods.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven 

In U.S. Open country, for a night it’s the Warriors not Tiger

CARMEL, Calif.—There will a U.S, Open, the 119th, starting Thursday, next door at Pebble Beach. So packed into Brophy’s.. a bar restaurant in the heart of this tourist town two hours south of the Bay Area, were he diverse segments of the golfing crowd, caddies in T-shirts, fans in all sorts of attire.

 Yet nobody was talking Tiger or Jordan Spieth. Nobody was talking at all. They we screaming and groaning at what was happening on the many TVs scattered about, watching the Warriors, suffering the Warriors, celebrating the Warriors.

  The Raptors are a nation’s team, but the Dubs are this region’s  team, stars from Oregon to Santa Barbara, basketball champions who everybody finds a reason to embrace.

  That game Monday night, Game 5 of the NBA finals, is one never to be forgotten.

   Maybe the Warriors won’t complete the task, might fall short in trying to win a third straight championship and fourth in vie years. Maybe in the end, the younger, quicker Raptors replace the Dubs as the leader of the pack. Eras only last so long.

  But that win Monday night, by a single point no less, 106-105. By a Warriors team without key players, without a chance, was one of great wins in their long history.

cc A win that proved nothing but also proved a great deal.

  Friday night, after a second straight home loss to Toronto, the Warriors were done. Or at least I believed that was the case. Maybe literally the season wasn’t over, but truth tell it was over. Consecutive defeats and emphati defeats.

   They would never play another game at Oracle.

   And so now they will. The season stays alive. Another terrible injury to Kevin Durant—the general manager, Bob Myers, was fighting back tears when he made the announcement of the apparently torn Achilles tendon. More questionable calls against Draymond Green. Another big game by the Raptors’ Kawahi Leronard.

  And yet, there were theWarriors walking away with the victory—you could say prancing away were it not for what happened to Durant— while the  Canadian crowd, certain this would be the night of history, left the building more bewildered than distraught.

    Fans carry their loyalty only so far. In the Warriors worst seaons, 17 wins,21 wins, the crowds felt a special kinship, sharing the pain, the agony if you will. Then came the boom years, the NBA record for victories, the titles. What had been appreciation turned into expectation and then disenchantment.,

  We know now, thanks to one of the more courageous and meaningful triumphs, in Warriors history, there will be one more game at Oracle where the team has played for some three  quarters of a Century.

  But no one knew Friday night. Yet in the closing minutes, a loss to Toronto assured, the possibilityexisted that this was the end of NBA basketball at Oracle (formerly Oakland Arena) too many fans fled,  not waiting to pay tribute to team or building.

  Now there’s a new opportunity. Now the Warriors come back to what has been their home since the ‘70s, Now they can close it out and sew it up with a win, which also would extend the playoffs to Sunday, where right here along Carmel Bay, on a colf course that opened 100years ago, the final round  of the Open will be played.

  Here, along the Pacificx, there in the province of Ontario

‘I ever gave up on the Warriors,” said the man across from me at Brophy’s after the commotion died down,

   He was wiser than most of us.

 

For Warriors this could be goodbye to Oracle—and Durant

  OAKLAND—Draymond Green made it sound simple enough and quite encouraging. “We just got to win the next game,” he said, “go back to Toronto, win Game 5, come back to Oracle, win Game 6 and then celebrate.”

   An athlete has to think positively, has to believe, so Draymond’s enthusiasm, deserved or not, is both understood and for Warriors fans appreciated. No player is going to concede, especially after he’s become a champion.

  And yet there may be nothing to celebrate.

  The Warriors after Game 3 of the 2019 NBA finals on Friday night may never again play at Oracle Arena, their home for 47 years,

  Kevin Durant, still declared out because of the injury to his right calf, may never again play for the Warriors, his home for three years,

  Nothing lasts forever, particularly sporting eras. Change is a constant, if not the result of time, then of fortune—or misfortune.

   The beginning of this season the Warriors were overwhelming favorites to win another championship.

   From the season opener in October to the start of the playoffs in April, the Warriors were called invincible, their winning of a third straight title and fourth in five years inevitable.

  But now, down two games to one to a Raptors team that appears physically and athletically superior; now without Durand and Kevon Looney and wondering what they’ll get from Klay Thompson, returning; now with Toronto holding the home court advantage, the words invincible and inevitable seem foolish.

 On Thursday, in the cold light of day—well, outside of the arena, where Green, always the spokesperson, was confronted by a journalist about the Warriors problems.

  “”They seem to have an answer for you guys,” the writer told Green, they being the Raptors. “Every time you hit a big shot (Wednesday night) they came up with something.”

  Which, of course is how a team wins games and perhaps championships.

 Will Klay, back after missing Game 3 and being missed on both defense and offense, make a difference?

  “I think having Klay back is important,” said Green. “When you talk about missing Klay, Kevin and Kevon (no lack of first names beginning with the letter K is there?) “obviously everything will point to the opposite end. But they’re three of our top five or six defenders, and I think that’s equally or even more important than the offensive side of the ball.

   “Like we still scored 109 points (Wednesday) night. That’s enough points to win. We have won with 109.”

   Not when the opposition is scoring 123.

 .The litany as preached by Warriors management (and that of most basketball teams, college on up) is defense creates offense.  A rebound off the other team’s errant shot or a stolen pass, can be turned into, if not an easy shot, then an uncontested one.

  The Celtics did it in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, the Bulls in the ‘80s, the Lakers in the ‘90s and early 2000s and now the Warriors. But Wednesday night the Warriors defense was lacking—the Raptors shot 52 percent, 44 percent on threes—and the offense was stagnant.

  “Our defense was poor,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said, an observation repeated after almost every defeat, “and in particular several times leaving Danny (Green) when we didn’t need to--and he’s a shooter who commands attention and respect.”

  Green, Danny of the Raptors, was 6 of 10 on field goal attempts, and scored 18, Green, Draymond of the Warriors, was 6 of 14 for 17 points. But Draymond Green had little help on offense (other than Steph Curry’s fantastic burst of 47 points) and veritably no help at all on defense.,

  Too many personnel moves (no Klay, no Looney), Too many mistakes, “Combination of all that,” said Kerr. “When you change the lineups and you’re without key guys you’re ending up with five guys on the floor who generally haven’t played together a whole lot. So while the effort was there the execution was not.

  “And as we watched (Thursday) morning we saw all kinds of stuff that we did poorly that we have to clean up. We will be more comfortable (Friday) and much better.”

   It they’re not, the Warriors will have seen the last of Oracle. And probably Kevin Durant.

Curry gets 47, but there’s not much strength in Dubs’ numbers

 OAKLAND—We’ve heard it for years now: “Strength in Numbers.”  A slogan. An idea. That the Warriors were more than one or two men, that if somebody went down there would another player to make the shots go down or no less importantly to keep the other team from making its shots.

  But the promise is not being kept. Key players are missing, two of the best in basketball, Kevin Durant and, as the Dubs learned moments before game time Wednesday night, Klay Thompson—two fifths of a championship not on the floor. And Kevon Looney also out.

  They say there’s no crying in baseball, and similarly there’s no whining in basketball. You play the men you have, and if they’re not quite good enough, not quite the equal of the missing men, well, that’s life—and the NBA.

   That’s also a reason the Toronto Raptors beat the Dubs, 123-109, to take two games to one lead in this best-of-seven final. A reason but not the only reason.

 The Raptors are an excellent team, long—the pro basketball label for lanky, lean people who give you no space or no quarter—and skilled. Also tough.

   In Game 2, the Raptors couldn’t hold off the Warriors, who are in their fifth straight final. In Game 3, however, at Oakland’s home, Oracle Arena, the Raps were as resilient as they were adept, rebuffing one Warriors challenge after another.

 Sure Steph Curry was brilliant offensively for the Warriors, 47 points, a personal playoff high, but as Dubs coach Steve Kerr said, and to which most basketball people will agree, the playoffs are decided on defense.

  The Warriors didn’t have the defense they needed, the defense that has made them winners. Toronto scored 123 points. Toronto shot 52 percent. Those are numbers we often get from the Warriors. Not from the team they face. And perhaps it was because they didn’t have Klay.

The man can shoot and score. He’s half of the “Splash Brothers,” joining Curry as a long-range (and short range) bomber. He averages in the 20s. Yet his biggest contribution may be his defense. He takes on one and all.

  “I mean,” said Kerr, “Klay’s one of our best defenders, so we missed his defense. But that doesn’t matter. The guy’s hurt, doesn’t play. You play the next guy.”

  Who was Shaun Livingston. Or behind him Quinn Cook.

  When he coached the Oakland Raiders, John Madden would tell us, “Yes, we have a very good backup. But who backs up the backup? When the starter is gone each step along you’re not as good as you were.”

   The decision to not play Klay, who had a sore hamstring, was made just before game time. “The whole point,” said Kerr “is not to risk a bigger injury that would keep him out the rest of the series. Never would have forgiven myself if I played him tonight and he had gotten hurt. So you live with the decision you make . . . Hopefully Klay will be out there Friday night.”

   That’s when Game 4 will be held at Oracle, and to call it a must win is not overstating the case. A defeat would put the Dubs down, 3-1, with two of the possible four remaining games at Toronto.

 “Our offense could have done better, obviously,” said Kerr. Indeed. Besides Curry, who took 31 shots (out of the team’s total 91) and made 14, the only Warriors in double figures were Draymond Green with 17 points and Andre Iguodala with 11.

Conversely every Raptors starter was in double figures, with, of course, Kawhi Leonard leading with 30 points.

 “Everybody wants to see us lose,” said Green, aware so much of North America would like a different champion. “So I’m sure people are happy (the missing starters) are hurt.

  “Not having anyone makes a difference, because when you assemble a team everyone brings something different . . . We just got to continue to battle and win the next game, go back to Toronto, win Game 5, come back to Oracle, win Game 6 and then celebrate. Fun times ahead.”

  Do we hear anybody laughing?

Warriors hope to see Klay but no more box-and-ones

  OAKLAND—You play to win the game. Herman Edwards told us that in a rant.

   He’s now coaching Arizona State, but back then, 2002 to be exact, he was coaching the New York Jets. The game was football. The idea is the same in every sport: You play to win.

 If you need to use two men to cover Jerry Rice. If you have to walk Barry Bonds with the bases loaded. If you are forced to play an old-fashioned, high school defense against Steph Curry.

  If it’s legal, and you think it will work, well, who cares whether it’s unusual or if Curry described the tactic as “janky”?  Although his response is understood.

  Teams don’t employ the box-and-one defense in the NBA, where four defenders basically guard the four guys who can’t score and the fifth shadows the one who can score.

  In Game 2 of the finals, that would be Curry..

The Dubs were without Kevin Durant.  And because Klay Thompson  incurred a hamstring injury in the fourth quarter, without Klay. Two-fifths of the Hampton Five—both offensive threats, one Splash Brother, one  magnificent ball handler-shooter--were missing from the lineup down the stretch.

They did hang on for a 109-104 win over the Raptors at Toronto to even the best-of-seven league finals at a win apiece. Game 3 is Wednesday night at Oracle, and whether you’ll see Klay—“I’m very encouraged I’ll be able to go out there,” Thompson said—the probability is you won’t see that vexing box-and-one from Toronto.

   “It was very effective,” conceded Warriors coach Steve Kerr. “The key with the zone or any ‘janky’ defense for that matter, it just changes the rhythm. Watching the tape we had open looks we didn’t knock down, and so the rhythm changed.”

 And the lead was reduced, The Raptors were playing to win the game, and Kerr was not at all surprised.

  “In the ninth grade a team played (a box-and one) against me, remembered Kerr. Whether that was when he attended school in Lebanon where his father was a university president or Palisades High in West Los Angeles was not important.

 Kerr could shoot from the outside, and if not quite as spectacularly as Curry, was a starter at the University of Arizona and a sub on the Chicago Bulls teams of Michael Jordan.

  “It’s typically something you can’t rely on for big, long stretches of the game,” said Kerr. “It’s probably something you’ll see more of in high school, even college. But I don’t remember ever seeing it in the NBA.”

  He’ll remember now. So will Curry.

  As far as the term, janky, Steph said it’s a “little Southern, North Carolina slang that I just pulled out of my back pocket. It just sounds right. I don’t really know what the true definition is.”

   How about “poor or of unreliable quality,” which is one way it’s defined.

“But obviously it was innovative and unexpected in terns (of a) defense you haven’t seen for a while. But there are things we could have done differently to get the ball in my hands working around other guys.”

   Curry scored 23, two points fewer than Thompson, but none of those 23 came in final quarter when the Raptors closed from 11 to 2 before losing by 5 after Andre Iguodala hit a 3-pointer with 26 seconds to play.

  Iguodala, underestimated but not unappreciated, said he’s motivated by an inspiration to protect the legacy of a Warriors team trying to win its fourth NBA title in five seasons.

  Asked his perspective, Curry, a two-time league MVP, said, “I don’t need anybody’s validation or praise to hype me up as other people in the league know who I am.

   “I always stay confident in my abilities and appreciative of the stage that I get to play on alongside my teammates who understand, one, what it takes to win and just the fun we have playing the way we do.”

  Unless, out of nowhere, they’re facing a box-and-one

Warriors hope to see Klay but no more box-and-ones

  OAKLAND—You play to win the game. Herman Edwards told us that in a rant.

   He’s now coaching Arizona State, but back then, 2002 to be exact, he was coaching the New York Jets. The game was football. The idea is the same in every sport: You play to win.

 If you need to use two men to cover Jerry Rice. It you have to walk Barry Bonds with the bases loaded. It you are forced to play an old-fashioned, high school defense against Steph Curry.

  If it’s legal, and you think it will work, well, who cares whether it’s unusual or if Curry described the tactic as “janky”?  Although his response is understood.

  Teams don’t employ the box-and-one defense in the NBA, where four defenders basically guard the four guys who can’t score and the fifth shadows the one who can score.

  In Game 2 of the finals, that would be Curry..

The Dubs were without Kevin Durant.  And because Klay Thompson  incurred a hamstring injury in the fourth quarter, without Klay. Two-fifths of the Hampton Five—both offensive threats, one Splash Brother, one  magnificent ball handler-shooter--were missing from the lineup down the stretch.

They did hang on for a 109-104 win over the Raptors at Toronto to even the best-of-seven league finals at a win apiece. Game 3 is Wednesday night at Oracle, and whether you’ll see Klay—“I’m very encouraged I’ll be able to go out there,” Thompson said—the probability is you won’t see that vexing box-and-one from Toronto.

   “It was very effective,” conceded Warriors coach Steve Kerr. “The key with the zone or any ‘janky’ defense for that matter, it just changes the rhythm. Watching the tape we had open looks we didn’t knock down, and so the rhythm changed.”

 And the lead was reduced, The Raptors were playing to win the game, and Kerr was not at all surprised.

  “In the ninth grade a team played (a box-and one) against me, remembered Kerr. Whether that was when he attended school in Lebanon where his father was a university president or Palisades High in West Los Angeles was not important.

 Kerr could shoot from the outside, and if not quite as spectacularly as Curry, was a starter at the University of Arizona and a sub on the Chicago Bulls teams of Michael Jordan.

  “It’s typically something you can’t rely on for big, long stretches of the game,” said Kerr. “It’s probably something you’ll see more of in high school, even college. But I don’t remember ever seeing it in the NBA.”

  He’ll remember now. So will Curry.

  As far as the term, janky, Steph said it’s a “little Southern, North Carolina slang that I just pulled out of my back pocket. It just sounds right. I don’t really know what the true definition is.”

   How about “poor or of unreliable quality,” which is one way it’s defined.

“But obviously it was innovative and unexpected in terns (of a) defense you haven’t seen for a while. But there are things we could have done differently to get the ball in my hands working around other guys.”

   Curry scored 23, two points fewer than Thompson, but none of those 23 came in final quarter when the Raptors closed from 11 to 2 before losing by 5 after Andre Iguodala hit a 3-pointer with 26 seconds to play.

  Iguodala, underestimated but not unappreciated, said he’s motivated by an inspiration to protect the legacy of a Warriors team trying to win its fourth NBA title in five seasons.

  Asked his perspective, Curry, a two-time league MVP, said, “I don’t need anybody’s validation or praise to hype me up as other people in the league know who I am.

   “I always stay confident in my abilities and appreciative of the stage that I get to play on alongside my teammates who understand, one, what it takes to win and just the fun we have playing the way we do.”

  Unless, out of nowhere, they’re facing a box-and-one.

On the diamond A’s feel pressure; on the court Warriors apply it

OAKLAND—Chris Bassitt was referring to the Astros. “They’re probably the best at keeping pressure on you, from pitch one to whatever.” Change sports, as do many of us did at game’s end, and he could have been talking basketball, and the Warriors.

  That’s an attribute of the best teams, the best individuals. They never allow you to relax, never allow you to believe; Tiger Woods in his day, Roger Federer to this day. The Patriots. The Warriors.

   No matter the situation, whether it’s in their favor or against them, they’re always hovering, always keeping the pressure on.

  Sunday, at the stadium renamed the Ring Central Coliseum, the Astros, World Series champions in 2017,  National League Championship Series competitors in 2018, never let up on the Athletics, and eventually, finally, perhaps inevitably, the ‘Stros won, 6-4 in 12 innings.

   Then, with the players gone, with the crowd of 23,144 gone, with the gulls swooping, squawking  and alighting as they do at major Bay Area sporting sites when the event is done, the Warriors-Raptors telecast went up on the big scoreboard screens, if only for the Coliseum grounds crew, repairing the field.

  The Warriors were down. Not to worry. As the Astros in baseball, the Dubs are the best in basketball at keeping the pressure on. That 18-0 start of the third quarter? Was anyone surprised? Make that was anyone surprised who knows the Warriors?

 And after getting swept in a three-game series to close a home stand that collapsed with five consecutive losses, is anyone surprised who knows the A’s?

  They are almost there but not quite, good enough to make one believe but not good enough to close the deal. As basketball people might advise that’s very much like the Raptors.

   “Frustrating, obviously,” That was the comment by A’s manager Bob Melvin. You presume Nick Nurse, the Raptors’ coach, was thinking the same.

   The team does so much right, but it’s not enough. The other team is just better.

  “We were on a nice little roll,” said Melvin, about a10-game stretch without a defeat. “We had momentum. Then we lose a couple. Then three more. We’ve got to find a way to be more consistent.”

  Basically a way to get runners on .So when the A’s hit home runs, and they had four Sunday, all solo shots, they need to score in bunches to   keep the pressure on.

   There’s a parallel between the Astros and the Warriors. Houston is so loaded, that even missing Jose Altuve, the 2017 American League MVP; Carlos Correa and George Springer, all injured, the ‘Stros have won six of seven and with the Twins (the Twins?) share the best record in the AL.

  Depth, or as they say around the Warriors, “Strength in Numbers.” No Kevin Durant? At times no Andre Iguodala? At times no DeMarcus Cousins.  Maybe after the hamstring injury, no Klay Thompson? Not  exactly no sweat, but rather no letdown. 

   Bassitt, the A’s starter, pitched six innings, allowed six hits and three runs. And only one walk, Tony Kemp in the fifth.  Then came two hits and a Marcus Semien error, and Houston had two runs,

  “You walk guys in this lineup,” Bassitt said about Houston, “and you’re screwed. Look at who they’re missing, and you still got to worry about the walks and the speed. You have to make them earn every single run. Unfortunately my walking Kemp started them running.”

  That’s what happens when you face a top team, a team with few weaknesses, a team that rarely makes mistakes, a team like the Astros. Or the Warriors.

  The A’s were scheduled to be in the air flying to southern California when the Warriors were finishing up against Toronto. Maybe they saw the end—the flight is only an hour, as you know; there’s TV on many planes. For sure soon enough they knew the result.

    The Warriors applied pressure. The A’s simply felt it. The Warriors won.  The A’s did not win.

After 11 innings and 4½ hours, Oakland’s faults overtake its virtues

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By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

OAKLAND — A hit batsman, a wild throw, a few hits — not a lot in the great scheme of things, but more than enough in any single game, especially one that lasts four and a half hours and in which a star reliever fails to pitch like a star reliever.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven 

Giants: Now even Bochy seems discouraged

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SAN FRANCISCO — Even the manager sounded depressed. For good reason. Yes, Bruce Bochy, eternal optimist, from whom there’s almost never a discouraging word, who rarely says anything downbeat about his players, even when their play seemingly demands it, was sounding all too negative.

These San Francisco Giants, the team Bochy will suffer through this one last season, is playing the sort of ball that is intolerable and, the way it is missing grounders, virtually indefensible.

Now, before end of May, it is legitimate to believe the Giants have reached the end of the road.

Two days ago, they were pathetic, losing — collapsing, if you will — to the Arizona Diamondbacks 18-2. Embarrassing. And then Saturday, the D-Backs again scored in double figures, thumping the Giants 10-4.

The only difference is that Saturday, when the announced attendance was 31,551 at Oracle Park, the fans stayed to the end, enjoying the sunshine and breezes if not the result of a fourth straight loss and fifth in six games.

“It’s hard to put a positive spin on this one,” agreed Bochy.

Other than mentioning the defense of Kevin Pillar, who Saturday was in right, and started a remarkable double play by catching a ball, throwing to Joe Panik who then fired to Brandon Belt to get the runner trying to return to first. Otherwise, the D-Backs would have had more than two runs in the inning.

Not that it really mattered. Arizona just kept slamming balls off and over the fences we’re told are too distant at Oracle — at least for the Giants. The game began, boom, with a Ketel Marte triple off Andrew Suarez. And away they went.

Oh, how times have changed. Five seasons ago the Giants won their third World Series in a stretch of five years. Now they’re not only in last place, they’re boring — other than an inning or three.

No one expected miracles when Farhan Zaidi took control of baseball operations at the end of last season — it was an old team with a poor farm system — but he could have worked some sort of transaction to keep everyone interested.

The former baseball commissioner, Bud Selig, used to advise fans that the entire idea is to provide hope — to keep everyone believing that a team is going to be up there in the final days of the schedule, Right now, the Giants appear to be without hope.

The starting pitching is getting pummeled. The offense is minimal, which is a nice way of saying terrible. The Giants scored three runs in the seventh, although when you’re trailing 10-1 that’s just window dressing. They did get runners on before that. And failed to bring them home.

“We couldn’t keep the line moving,” said Bochy.

How do you fix this mess? Zaidi warned last summer, when he came from the Dodgers to take over the Giants, that he did not believe in the quick fix, although even if he did — you know, signing a zillion-dollar free agent such as Bryce Harper — it was beyond the realm of possibility.

The Chicago Cubs, where tradition and the ballpark, “beautiful Wrigley Field,” were enough to fill the seats, and Houston Astros, who had no tradition but did have a lot of talent in the minors, were willing to go through a complete rebuilding — and each won a World Series.

But places like New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco won’t accept a tear-down and rebuild. They won’t accept losing either. You have to at least be competitive. Or season tickets will tumble along with the ball club.

Bochy did point out the Giants have a fine defensive outfield, anchored by Pillar and Steven Duggar, who Saturday made another one of his airborne catches. Added to those two as of Saturday when he was called up from Sacramento is Mike Yastrzemski, who Giants partisans can only wish will remind all of baseball of his grandfather.

Carl Yastrzemski, now 79, played his entire magnificent career (Triple Crown, Hall of Fame) with the Red Soxand when Mike was in high school gave him a few lessons on the art of hitting. Mike was 0-for-3 Saturday, but that was only Day One.

Maybe the kid comes through. Maybe he doesn’t. For sure it will be more enticing to follow his progress than the lack of progress of his new team, the San Francisco Giants.

Koepka seems as much a contradiction as a champion

in ,

By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Brooks Koepka seems as much a contradiction as he is a champion, someone whose fame doesn’t seem to match his game, a golfer who has won more big events in a shorter time other than Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods but hasn’t connected with the people.

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