Giants trying to take two steps forward without a step back

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — These Giants are different, certainly from those of the championship years, even the years when they weren’t champions but were successful. Different, they believe, from last year, when the bottom fell out and the fans’ faith fell off.

These Giants are trying to take two steps forward without more than one step back, a team in which every situation evolves into an incident, good or bad.

A win, in a game or more notably in a series, is large. A defeat, such as that 15-2 debacle on Wednesday afternoon at AT&T Park, is taken as a sign that it’s going to be another awful season.

Already, a baseball expert from ESPN, Buster Olney, has suggested that by early summer if the Giants are out of the pennant race, which could happen, they trade Madison Bumgarner, which won’t happen. Hey, it’s not even May, and while San Francisco is down in the standings it’s only two games below .500.

The Dodgers and Padres come to AT&T consecutively, and in the post-game presser Wednesday someone asked Giants manager Bruce Bochy if it was time to make a move. On the field, not the roster.

Bochy pointed out that, despite being routed by the Washington Nationals, the Giants won the series two games to one, as they did the previous series against the Angels at Anaheim.

“Well, I think it’s early to make our move,” said Bochy. “We won two series. There’s no being content with that, and we got a good team (the NL champion Dodgers) coming in. Yeah, we do need to be more consistent here. We got to get more runs up there. But with the exception of today, we’ve been pretty good on the mound.”

But Wednesday, with Jeff Samardzija making his second start after spending time on the disabled list, they were not good at all, the Nats scoring three runs in the top of the first and bunches thereafter.

“It’s important we have a good home stand before we hit the road,” Bochy said.

Mac Williamson, who had homered in the previous two games against the Nats, didn’t play Wednesday. “He had a stiff neck, and we scratched him,” Bochy said. “He should be back Friday against the Dodgers.”

Not that Williamson’s presence would have meant much. “It was one of those games that started rough,” said Bochy, doing his Stephen Colbert routine, “and got worse.”

And with Cy Young winner Max Scherzer pitching for the Nats, even if a bit imperfectly — but only a bit — the Giants had no chance in this one.

Samardzija only made it into the fourth. He was charged with six of the 15 runs. “Just one of those days,” said Samardzija. “No explanation for it. Yeah, a pitcher wants to get that good rhythm going. When you get a chance against a good lineup, you want to get guys early and often.”

He barely got them late and infrequently.

Good pitchers, indeed, have bad days. On another team, a contender such as the Dodgers, the Red Sox or the Diamondbacks, it wouldn’t matter. But on the Giants, everything matters.

Such as the very ineffective pitching of lefthanded reliever Josh Osich (four hits, four runs, 1 1/3 innings Wednesday). Osich was sharp during the exhibition season, but he has an 8.10 earned run average in the games that count this spring.

“They’re not on track,” Bochy said about Osich and Corey Gearrin, who although not allowing a run has a 6.14 ERA. ”Osich had some good moments today. Corey is just battling himself instead of going out there and attacking the strike zone.

“This game is all about confidence. You get shaken, you don’t throw with as much conviction. Just let it go. For these guys, there’s a fine line when the other team gets in run-scoring position. You want guys to expand, but there’s a fine line there in turning it up a notch with men on base.”

The Giants are hovering, they need a strong bullpen. They need Mac Williamson to continue his hitting. What they don’t need, after he’s healthy once more, is to trade Madison Bumgarner.

That would be dozens of steps backward without any forward.

Giants: Lunacy, magic, destiny

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — This was lunacy. This was magic.  This was destiny.

This was baseball at its best and worst, baseball of misplays, brilliance and autumn satisfaction.

This was the no-chance Giants doing what that they seem programmed to do, lurching through the first round of the playoffs, while their opponents, this time the Washington Nationals, wonder how life and sport can be so unfair.

They were lucky to be here, the Giants, needing a wild-card win — on the road, against Pittsburgh — to get to the National League Division Series. That enabled them to advance to the best-of-five against the Nats, who had the more wins than any team in the league during the regular season.

But this isn’t the regular season, this is the Giants’ season, as was obvious from the Mumm’s Napa sparkling wine being spritzed Tuesday night through a clubhouse reeking in grapiness and joy.     

Yes, there were the Giants, celebrating their very bizarre, but very real, 3-2 win over the Nats, and the series victory, three games to one.

This was Hunter Pence crashing into the padding between the fourth and fifth archways in right field at AT&T Park to make a catch, which surely was shown on a dozen replays and should have been on a hundred.

This was beleaguered Ryan Vogelsong courageously going 5 2/3 innings in what some suspected might be the last game he would ever pitch for the Giants — of course, now it will not — and saying his thoughts were about getting teammate Tim Hudson into the next round for the first time in Hudson’s career.

This was the offensively challenged Giants, who kept leaving the bases loaded and had only nine runs in the four games, scoring on a walk, an unfielded bunt, a ground out and finally, breaking a 2-2 tie in the seventh, on a wild pitch.

“I have a gritty bunch out there,” said Giants manager Bruce Bochy. “I told them earlier, there’s nobody’s will that’s stronger than theirs.”

And probably nobody’s fans who were louder than theirs.

When the Giants went out for the ninth, under a full moon that had risen behind the centerfield scoreboard, AT&T Park was cauldron of noise.

And not long after the final out, a grounder to second baseman Joe Panik, the Giants raced around the extremities of the ballpark, slapping hands with fans who they could reach or waving gleefully at those in the upper decks.

“We were determined not to get back on the plane and go to Washington,” said Bochy of a possible fifth game.

Instead, they will get on a plane and fly to St. Louis, where Saturday they play the Cardinals in the opener of the best-of-seven NL Championship Series.

As if things couldn’t be any better by the docks of the Bay, the Cards earlier in the evening came from behind to stun Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers. As we know, many of the good people in Northern California so despise L.A. they’d just as soon the Dodgers lose as the Giants win.

On Tuesday, both took place.

What a screwball few days. On Saturday, Buster Posey gets thrown out at the plate trying to score from second, and the game goes 18 innings, the Giants winning. On Tuesday, Posey again gets thrown out at home place trying to score from third when Nats reliever Aaron Barrett flung one over the catcher’s head on an intentional walk.

“I was just trying to score, both times,” said Posey. He was ducking sprays of sparkling wine and trying to grab his twins, who along with the members of many Giants’ families had been brought to the clubhouse.

What a screwball few days. Tony Bennett, the 88-year-old crooner best known for “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” was brought in Monday to sing “God Bless America,” done before the home seventh of important nationally televised games.

He botched one of the verses, transforming “ ...oceans white with foam...” to what sounded like “ripe with gold.”

People laughed. People shrugged. A botch, but not nearly as critical as the botches made by the Nats, letting bunts roll untouched, bouncing pitches in front of home plate.

"I wish I knew the formula, the secret," Bochy said of the Giants’ success. "They seem to thrive on this type of play. They elevate their play. I tell them, 'It's in your DNA.' But I can't say there's a silver bullet. I've been on the other end, too, in these short series. There's no magic formula, trust me.

“It was one of the strangest games, how we scored. But that’s our way sometimes. We scratch and paw for runs. And we got a break.”

They also got a tremendous effort from Vogelsong, who, despite his struggles in the season, somehow got it done in the postseason.

The 37-year-old, 0-4 with a 5.53 earned run average in September, held the Nats hitless until the fifth.

"That's what I expect out of myself in these games," Vogelsong said. "You can't treat it like any other game. I don't. Some guys do, but I treat it like the last game I'm ever going to pitch."

When he was replaced in the top of the seventh by Javier Lopez, after Pence’s great catch and a long out by Jayson Werth, the crowd began to chant, “Vogey, Vogey, Vogey.”

“Just a gutty effort,” said Bochy. “I’m proud of him. I really am. He really came through for us tonight.”

He wasn’t alone. At AT&T, maybe the oceans truly are ripe with gold.

Did Bumgarner’s throw let Nats get away?

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — It just got away. Madison Bumgarner was talking about the bunt he picked up and hurled into left field. He could have been talking about history, about the National League Division Series, the one that may have slipped out of the Giants’ grasp as surely as the ball did from Bumgarner’s grasp.

A sacrifice bunt with runners on first and second and nobody out in the top of the seventh of a scoreless game. Bumgarner grabbed the ball. He’s a lefthander.

He’s a great pitcher, probably San Francisco’s best. He was out there to wrap up the Series, to give the Giants a sweep over the Washington Nationals. For six innings Monday afternoon he was impressive, as was the other starter, Doug Fister.   

In the seventh, Bumgarner gave up a leadoff double to Ian Desmond and then a walk to the dangerous Bryce Harper. The Nats needed a win. The Nats needed a run. Wilson Ramos tried to sacrifice, but the count went to 1-2. Washington manager Matt Williams wouldn’t back away from the bunt.

Ramos dumped it down, and Bumgarner picked it up. And threw away the baseball. Maybe, knowing how little things grow large and fateful in the playoffs, threw away the postseason. Flung the ball past third baseman Pablo Sandoval. Maybe flung the Giants' chances into oblivion.

Desmond would score from second, Harper from first. The Nats would beat the Giants, 4-1, and not only would stay alive but perhaps also would change the direction of the series.

Washington had a win. Washington had momentum.

“It just got away from me,” said Bumgarner. He had gone 22 innings in the postseason without permitting a run, six in this game. He was the man who would clinch. But with the bunt in his hand, he clutched. “I felt good throwing it,” said Bumgarner.

A door was opened. The Nats had the best record in the National League during the regular season. But the Giants were baffling them, frustrating them, beating them, 3-2, the first game then in a record 18 hours, 2-1 the second. Everything was going the Giants way. Until Bumgarner’s throw went the wrong way.

Do the Giants come back? Do the Nationals, waiting for the break, win the last two? Was that error in the nightmarish litany of fairy stories the clock striking midnight? The Giants did win the World Series in 2010 and 2012, but their legacy is of heartbreak, of line drives caught and other miseries.

Giants manager Bruce Bochy saw everything unfolding and winced. “I was hoping we would get an out there,” said Bochy. Instead he got a figurative punch in the jaw.

“He tried to do too a little too much there on the bunt,” Bochy said of Bumgarner. “You know you take the out. He tried to rush it. He threw it away.”

Then as if to lighten a grim setting, Bochy added, “He threw it away well, too.”

There was laughter. There was jolting reality. The Nats had been given life, and in baseball, where time stands still, where there is no clock, that’s all you need. Especially when you have Denard Span, Anthony Rendon (7 of 15 in the three games), Jayson Werth and Adam LaRoche at the top of the lineup.

Ryan Vogelsong pitches for the Giants when the teams play again Tuesday night at AT&T Park. “He’s one of our starters,” said Bochy, explaining why Vogelsong was chosen. “He’s a guy we have all the confidence in the world in. He’s been in this situation before.”

Gio Gonzalez will go for the Nats. He used to be on the Oakland A’s. He knows AT&T. “Spent half my career here,” said Gonzalez, exaggerating only a trifle. What he didn’t know Monday morning was he would have the opportunity to pitch one more time. One very big time.

“We all want to win,” said Gonzalez. “We can’t dwell on the past.”

That was the Nats’ mantra after the 18-inning loss Saturday night. That is the Giants’ mantra after the stunning loss Monday afternoon.

“I don’t know if shock’s the word,” Bochy said of the way the way things turned in the seventh. “It’s such an intense game, and I know that they wanted to get that out at third base. They played so well in these type of games. We made a mistake. We’ve got to learn from it.”

It may be too late. It may be that the only thing Bumgarner and the Giants will learn is they gave the Nationals the break that may break the Giants.

“Well,” said Bochy, “I don’t know how many times I’ve heard down the stretch in September ‘must win’ and all that. That’s why you play the game. We’re fortunate not to be in that situation quite yet with our two wins in Washington.

“But they are all important games. We know how good this club is we’re playing, and you have to play your best ball to beat them. Today we didn’t, and we made a mistake that hurt us. But we’ll come out and get after it (Friday).”

Giants show who they really are

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — That’s who they really are, the Giants. At least who they’re supposed to be, a team that keeps the game close, which has great pitching and effective fielding. For three games, three reassuring games, that’s exactly what they did.
   
There was a loss Wednesday, an agonizing, grinding 2-1 loss to the Washington Nationals at AT&T Park, a loss that reminded how difficult it is to win in baseball.
    
A loss, but not a downer.
    
Not one of those “What the heck is going on here?” type of exhibitions the Giants had a week ago at Toronto and Colorado when they got pummeled, giving up extra-base hits, dropping ground balls — or throwing them away — and dropping five games out six.
  
A “horrible trip” is what Bruce Bochy called it, and for a manager perennially upbeat, that’s a concession as shocking as what happened to the pitching and defense.
   
But the return to the ballpark by the bay brought a return to what we had known as Giants baseball, an 8-0 win over the Nats on Monday, a 4-2 win in 10 innings on Tuesday, and then that 10-inning, 2-1 defeat on Wednesday. Four runs allowed in three games.
   
"The guys bounced back," said Bochy. "They got on track here. This was more (like) our baseball. It was very encouraging how we played in this series. We played well again.
  
“Sure it was a loss (Wednesday), but the way we played was encouraging. Good pitching. What we thought we could do.”
    
Which was hang to in there. To go through some of that sweet torture made famous in that championship season of 2010.
    
On Tuesday, they rallied to tie and then won in 10 on Pablo Sandoval’s home run.
   
On Wednesday, they rallied to tie, then lost in 10 when the superkid, Bryce Harper, who earlier had homered, doubled and scored on Ian Desmond’s single.
   
“Their defense beat us,” said Bochy. Quite probably. After Buster Posey singled home Angel Pagan with one out in the eighth, Hunter Pence drove a liner to right that Harper grabbed on a dive. Then when Brandon Belt smashed one on the ground to right, first baseman Adam LaRoche stopped the ball from going through and forced Posey at second.
   
Two innings later, Washington, underachieving this season, got the run that got the win.
   
“He’s a good hitter,” Bochy said of Harper, an understatement.    
  
Harper, the 2012 NL Rookie of the Year, has been labeled the “New Natural.” He was the overall No. 1 pick in the 2010 amateur draft — a year after teammate, Stephen Strasburg, the pitcher, was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2009 draft.
      
The Nats have talent. So do the Giants, or they wouldn’t have won the World Series twice in the past three seasons. The Giants also had problems, those one-sided losses in Toronto and Colorado. With Ryan Vogelsong out with a broken finger and Santiago Casilla also on the disabled list, they still have them.
    
Yet Matt Cain’s start on Tuesday, only two runs allowed, and Madison Bumgarner’s on Wednesday — seven innings, one run — were reminders of the way it was and should be once more.
    
“It was no fun to give it up (at Colorado), but we know what we can do,” said Bumgarner. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
    
What he didn’t say was that the ugly exhibition on the road wasn’t what people have come think of as the San Francisco Giants. “No,” was his one-word response when asked if that was anything close to what he or his teammates expected.
    
What Bochy and the 190th consecutive sellout crowd at AT&T expected Wednesday was exactly what they got, great pitching, Washington’s Gio Gonzalez — formerly with the Oakland A’s — and Bumgarner matching shutouts through five innings.
   
Then, leading off the sixth, Harper, a left-handed batter, powered a 1-2 pitch off Bumgarner, a left-handed thrower, into the left field stands.
 
"I think he made it pretty clear that he's going to play as hard as he can every day," Bumgarner said of Harper. "It's fun to play against guys like that. Most everybody plays that way, but ... he's the kind of player who can bring out the best in you."
   
The Giants, with a day off Thursday, believe the games against the Nats brought out the best in them after a week when they played their worst.
   
The only disappointing thing Wednesday, other than the final score, was the end of Marco Scutaro’s hitting streak, which had reached 19 consecutive games.
    
Scutaro was the Giants’ final batter. With two outs in the bottom of the 10th, he hit one that appeared might reach the fence but was caught on the warning track by Roger Bernadina.
    
“He just missed it,” said Bochy.

RealClearSports: Debate Rages Over Strasburg Shutdown

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

SAN FRANCISCO — So in a while, a couple of weeks probably, Stephen Strasburg won't be allowed to pitch. But that's the future. For the present, he's still active, and today he's going for the Nationals against the Giants.

That's why Tuesday night's win by the Giants over Washington was important. "Huge,'' said Bruce Bochy, San Francisco's manager. The Nats were 4-0 against the Giants. And Monday night, they crushed San Francisco, 14-2.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2012

The City That Knows How, and knows baseball

SAN FRANCISCO -- They call it The City That Knows How. Ryan Zimmerman wouldn’t disagree. It’s also the city that, despite the digs about fans on cell phones or wandering about the park looking at the bay, knows baseball. And knows Ryan Zimmerman.

The streak, Zimmerman’s streak, came to an end Wednesday. It was halted at AT&T Park by several Giants pitchers, most notably Barry Zito.

In 30 straight games, Ryan Zimmerman, at age 24 one of the great young ones, had at least one base hit. Until Wednesday.

Zimmerman’s Washington Nationals finally beat the Giants, after nine consecutive defeats, two this season, whipped them, 6-3. And that softened some of the disappointment. After all the basis of sport is to win. But next to that, there always are numbers.

The Giants fans, and attendance was announced as 30,120, wanted a win. That didn’t happen. They also wanted Ryan Zimmerman, of the Washington Nats, to go on hitting. That didn’t happen either.

So, when Zimmerman in the top of the ninth hit a grounder, which San Francisco shortstop Edgar Renteria turned into a force play, when the hard reality had hit that Zimmerman would end the game without getting a hit, the crowd rose and applauded.

A standing ovation for a visiting player. A standing ovation for a rare achievement.

“They’ve got very knowledgeable fans out here,’’ Zimmerman said later in the clubhouse. “They know baseball. They love baseball, and it was special. Anytime you get people on the road telling you good luck and are cheering for you, it means something. It was pretty cool.’’

For more than a month, starting April 8, Zimmerman hadn’t played a game without getting at least one hit. Until he went 0-for-3 with a couple of walks. One of those walks, in the seventh inning with Nats on second and third, was intentional, but neither Zimmerman nor his manager, Manny Acta, was bitter about the tactic.

“I understand completely,’’ said Acta. “I would have done the same thing.’’

Ryan was the 26th player to hit in 30 consecutive games or more. Pete Rose got to 44 in 1978, which sounds like a lot until compared to the iconic mark of 56 straight by Joe DiMaggio in 1941.

DiMaggio was a San Franciscan, of course. Grew up here, as did his younger brother Dom, who died only the other day. A lot of these young athletes are unable to reference the legends of their sport, but Zimmerman knows full well who and what about his game, about our game.

“I almost snuck one through there in the ninth,’’ he said in reflection. “They made good pitches on me today. It’s tough to get hits. Thirty games makes you realize how much better 56 is than 30. But this was fun. I enjoyed it. I learned a lot going through the experience.

“You don’t usually have people on the road saying they hope you get a hit. It’s cool. I think that’s one of the best parts of sports. Fans actually appreciate the game whether you’re on their team or not.’’

They appreciate the game in the Bay Area. The garlic fries and the big glove in left and across the bay the world championship pennants flying at the Oakland Coliseum may be worthy of conversation. But the ones who show up in the stands are not merely spectators, they’re fans in every sense of the word.

They’ll cheer a well-placed sacrifice bunt as much as they will a double to left. They love hanging the letter “K’’ on the wall after every strikeout by a home pitcher. And they understood what Ryan Zimmerman was doing. His uniform didn’t matter. It was his play, his hitting, that counted.

“We want to thank the Giants fans,’’ said Acta, the Nats skipper. “What they did, the standing ovation, was very classy. You don’t get that everywhere you go.’’

The Nationals, the former Montreal Expos, have the worst record in the majors. The only time they had been mentioned was in the punch line of jokes, such as the one borrowed about the old Washington Senators built on George Washington: “First in war, first in peace, last in the National League.’’

Then Ryan Zimmerman started hitting. And until Wednesday didn’t stop.

“I think we’ve gotten a little of attention because of him,’’ Acta said. “It puts us on the map, what he did.’’

What he did was stunning, even for Zimmerman.

“To get a hit every single game, there’s got to be a little bit of luck involved,’’ said Zimmerman, “but not wasting at bats, not swinging at bad pitches is hard to do. Every game, to put four good at bats together is not easy, especially against the talent you’re facing on the mound.’’

Zimmerman did it for 30 straight games. It was worthy of a standing ovation from The City That Knows How.