Giants get shimmies, a big hit and a win in the home opener

SAN FRANCISCO — “The morning fog may fill the air, but I don’t care.” Yes, the words of Tony Bennett, filling the air at Oracle Park. What little fog there had been was gone on these best-of-all home openers for the Giants, who true to the last line of the song found their golden sun shining.

What a day. Orlando Cepeda and Barry Bonds were in the stands. Johnny Cueto was in a groove. Hometown guy Brandon Crawford — well, he’s from across the bay — got the big hit.

Does it get any better than this?

The Giants, climbing above .500 for the first time this very young season, defeated the Colorado Rockies, 3-1, in a game as well played and as enjoyable as any since the last time there were fans in the seats at Oracle Park.

That was the year Cueto returned from shoulder surgery, and this game for Cueto, with his shimmies and dreadlocks flying, was his best game since. He got within one out of a complete game, holding firm the first time manager Gabe Kapler came out with the apparent intent to relieve him.

Kapler, booed by virtually everybody in the crowd of 7,390 — if good naturedly — didn’t take out Cueto the first time, the fans chanting “Johnny, Johnny,” but then did, if reluctantly.

“He pitched his best game I’ve seen,” said Kapler. “He mixed things up.”

His normal procedure is to shake things up. “I like to entertain,” said Cueto through a translator.

Going four innings without allowing a hit and in the end striking out seven will entertain most managers. Even those of opposing clubs.

"He's a great competitor, first of all,” Bud Black, the Rockies manager, said of Cueto. “He's passed the time with success, and I do think there's a little bit of an entertainer aspect to Johnny, and I think that's a good thing, because he backs it up."

Cueto, Crawford and Brandon Belt, who didn’t play, supposedly are in their last season with a Giants team trying to build for the future. But Crawford certainly seems to be a keeper for awhile.

He and Buster Posey get the cheers from fans still appreciative of contributions to the Giants’ three World Series championships. Posey, of course, opted out of the shortened Covid-19 season of 2020, after adopting babies, so he’s getting recognition that was somewhat overdue.

And after the response Thursday, Posey had a single.

"He deserves all that support, he's meant so much to the city, this franchise, the players that are on the team right now," Kapler said. "I certainly love when he gets that level of respect.”

Crawford’s family was at the game, the first in two years to which fans have been permitted. Then he gets the deciding hit with his family in the ballpark.

“It was definitely special,” said the shortstop. “Just being out there, just being back at home. Being able to get the big hit in a situation was a lot of fun.

“The crowd was loud, louder than the number of fans who were announced.”

Why not? Giants fans, waiting to be involved in the fun of cheering and booing — if in an unusual circumstance — were watching good baseball.

For Crawford, it was fun backing Cueto. “He did such a good job of keeping them off balance,” Crawford said about the pitcher. “His timing was great.”

So, too, was the timing of the Giants. Over the years, even the title years, they dropped the home opener. But Thursday, returning from the void and the vaccinations, from the lonely season, the Giants won.

Just as scripted and as hoped.

Just another game for Giants — and just another loss

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.

Warm weather, big crowds: Spring training finally Marches in

By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

MESA, Ariz. — They’ve been at it for weeks, as Bob Melvin reminded. But with the temperature rising, the stands filling and the mood as perfect as the weather, for the Oakland A’s this glorious Friday, March 1, was the first day that spring training 2019 felt like spring training.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven 

Giants’ frustration turns into victory

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — The manager felt exactly like the fans. Frustrated, disappointed, maybe if he would confide, defeated. The Giants, the World Series Champion Giants, had spent four hours Tuesday night “squandering a 6-0 lead,” as Bruce Bochy so accurately phrased it.

Now a bit before noon Wednesday, a weary Bochy was meeting his obligations and the media. “That,” he said to the journalists about the night before, “was one of our worst games.”

One of their worst games in one of their worst recent seasons. It’s one thing not to repeat. It’s another to plummet, to bumble in the field, to fail at the plate, to be embarrassed.

Baseball, it’s been said, is designed to test a man, to find how he can react when times are going poorly, because as we’ve seen from the celebrations and the acclaim, we know how he will react when everything’s going well.

How does he play the mental game, often the most difficult of all? Does he solider on? Does he start contemplating the end of the schedule?

What we found out a few hours after Bochy’s remarks was what Bochy said he already knew. The Giants still have their pride, and their professionalism.

The Giants loaded the bases in the seventh on three walks with nobody out. Only one of those runners scored. The Giants trailed, 3-2, and you surmised they would lose another. They didn’t, getting two runs in the bottom of the eighth to beat the Colorado Rockies, 4-3.

The feeling in the clubhouse was more of relief than elation. More of reassurance than satisfaction.

“If we had lost this game,” conceded Bochy, “after the way we did (Tuesday) night it would have been really bad, really frustrating. This would have been a hard game to take.”

Especially with a 10-game road trip against the Dodgers, Mets and Yankees starting Thursday. Especially with a home crowd, one of those empty-seat sellouts, the 240th in a row, screaming as if the Giants were in first place, not in last.

“The fans are still behind us,” said Brandon Belt.

The Giants on Wednesday at AT&T Park got what they had been missing, effective pitching and timely hitting in the same game. The mark of a lousy team is to lose a game 9-8 and then the next day lose one, say, 3-2. Which, after a seventh inning when they had the bases loaded and scored only one run — on a sacrifice fly — appeared likely.

But not only did San Francisco win, it also won a home stand (2-2 against Arizona, 2-1 against Colorado) for the first time since May. The Giants also received fine pitching again from Yusmeiro Petit. On Friday, he was one out from a perfect game. On Wednesday, he retired the first nine batters he faced in order — meaning only one base runner in 13 innings — but then he wobbled in the sixth and came out.

Still, three runs allowed in 14 2/3 innings is the stuff of a guy who might very well be a starter next season. He’s hoping as much, as he explained through a translator. So is management.

“He’s a really smart pitcher,” said Bochy.

Petit is 29, and it took him a long while to get to the bigs, but perhaps his time has come. In 5 2/3 innings Wednesday, Petit struck out seven.

“We’re playing hard,” said Bochy. “I never doubted that. We don’t have a choice. This is what we’re paid to do.”

They just haven’t done it very well much of the year. Only two statistics are truly important: runs scored and runs allowed. The Giants for weeks now haven’t been able to get people around the bases and across home plate. They did Wednesday because Marco Scutaro, six weeks from his 38th birthday, refused to rest, and because Belt drove a pitch to the opposite field, left.

With the bases loaded in the eighth — in part due to a perfect sacrifice bunt by pinch hitter Eire Adrianza — and one out, Scutaro singled home the run that tied the game, 3-3. Belt followed with a single that would prove to win the game.

“Marco doesn’t like days off,” said Bochy. “He wanted to win this game.”

And so he and Belt, along with Angel Pagan and Brandon Crawford, won it.

“This could take us into next year,” said Belt.

Where it takes them immediately is to Los Angeles, where the Dodgers, supplanting the Giants as the best team in National League West, are waiting.

“There will be a lot of people down there,” Bochy said, referring to expected sellout crowds. “It will be good for our young players to be on a stage like that. We’re going to go down there and try to win some ballgames.”

Something they haven’t done very often — Wednesday being a fine exception.

Giants were 90 feet away

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO -- Ninety feet. Red Smith called the 90 feet between bases the closest man has come to perfection. But Wednesday night the Giants were not quite perfect. They were gutsy. They were exciting. But they couldn’t get the tying run home from 90 feet.

They lost to the Colorado Rockies, 4-3. They lost a game in the wild card standings to the Rockies. They could have been 1½ games behind, but now they are back 3 games. Now the playoffs are even more remote. Not impossible, but remote.

There was Eugenio Velez on third. Two outs, bottom of the ninth. A game that meant everything. The crowd chanting like a college football crowd. “Let’s go Giants.’’ Clap, clap. “Let’s go Giants.’’ AT&T rocking. For eight innings the Giants had done little -- done nothing, if you want to refer to runs.

For eight innings they had been shut out by the Rockies' Jorge De La Rosa, who owns the Giants. He had pitched six times previously against San Francisco, and the Rockies had won all six, five of those victories going to De La Rosa. And now it was the bottom of the ninth, and the Giants trailed by four runs.

But De La Rosa had been taken out for pinch hitter in the top of the inning, and Franklin Morales was pitching now for Colorado. And Freddy Sanchez singled. And Pablo Sandoval singled. And Bengie Molina singled. Then Juan Uribe came up. The 38,696 fans were standing, and one side of the park would shout “Oooh,’’ and the other “Ree-bay.’’ Again and again.

Uribe grounded to short, but Troy Tulowitzki threw the ball to right. And now it was 4-2 and Velez was put in to run for Uribe. He stole second. A runner on third, a runner on second and still nobody out.

Edgar Renteria is a clutch hitter. “He’s the guy we wanted up there,’’ said Matt Cain, who would be the losing pitcher. “But sometimes it doesn’t work out.’’ Renteria popped to second. The runners held. But when pinch hitter Randy Winn grounded to first, Eli Whiteside, running for Molina, came home and Velez moved to third. Now it was 4-3 and Nate Schierholtz was coming to bat.

“You always want to be up there in the bottom of the ninth with the winning or tying run on base,’’ said Schierholtz. Which he was. But on a 3-2 pitch from Rafael Betancourt, Schierholtz struck out. The collective groan carried out to the bay.

“I swung at a bad pitch,’’ confided Schierholtz. “I couldn’t get it done.’’

Maybe it shouldn’t have come to that. Maybe the Giants should have been in front or no less than tied by the eighth. Andres Torres opened the fourth with a double, but after Sanchez struck out, Torres was caught in a bizarre double play. Sandoval grounded to Tulowitzki. Torres was trapped off second. Not on a line drive, on a grounder. Tulowitzki tagged him then threw out Sandoval at first.

“I had a big lead,’’ said Torres. “I tried to come back. I took too much.’’

The Giants took nothing in the sixth. Schierholtz walked, and reliable Rich Aurilia dropped a pinch-hit single into center. Two on, no one out, the top of the lineup, Torres, Sanchez and Sandoval coming to bat. De La Rosa struck out each, swinging.

“We had a real opportunity,’’ said Bruce Bochy, the Giants manager. “We just missed.’’

So the Giants head to Los Angeles. As players dressed, bats nosily were being shoved into canvas bags. Suitcases and travel bags lined the entrance to the clubhouse. San Francisco hits the road, to where no one can be certain.

“We’re in a situation where we need to win ball games,’’ said Bochy. “This was a tough one.’’

A tough one but also an uplifting one. Four runs behind and then one run behind, with a man on third base, 90 feet away. “We couldn’t get a timely hit or earlier a productive out. But we fought back.’’

The crowd loved it. For eight innings, the situation seemed hopeless. Suddenly the Giants were alive and the fans were alive. When Tulowitzki tossed away that possible double play, the belief was nearly palpable. Somehow, the Giants would do it. Somehow, the baseball gods would smile on them.

They did not. The Giants got close, got 90 feet from the tie. But it might as well have been 900.

(ArtSpander.com Exclusive) Giants win the game they needed

SAN FRANCISCO –- A day after giving up 11 runs, the Giants gave up none. A day after it seemed like it was time to forget the season, the season is there to be remembered.

“Here we are approaching September,’’ said Bruce Bochy, the manager, “and we are playing some very important ball games.’’

Like the one Friday night, the one in which Tim Lincecum went eight innings, Pablo Sandoval hit one into the seats and Giants beat the Colorado Rockies, 2-0.

This was like 2002 all over again at AT&T -- a game that mattered, a crowd that cared, a performance that scintillated. Unseasonable heat by the Bay, a temperature of 75 degrees at game time. Unsuspected brilliance from the home nine.

Lincecum hadn’t won a game in nearly a month. The guy nicknamed the Freak, because of his windup and follow-through, had been freaky. Or star-crossed. Either he gave up too many runs, as he did against the Reds a week and a half ago, or the Giants scored two few, as they did against the Rockies six days ago.

But the good times came flying back. Lincecum struck out eight, permitted only four hits. He had 39,047 people standing when he threw his 127th pitch of the game, the ball that had Seth Smith grounding out to end the eighth.

“Tim’s the guy you want on a the mound in a game like this,’’ said Bochy. “He had great stuff.’’

He pitched like the Cy Young Award winner he was in 2008, the way the Giants and crowd expected. And then he turned it over to Brian Wilson, who picked up another save, his 31st.

Monday night the Giants were wounded, blowing that 4-2 lead in the 14th to the Rockies in Denver. Thursday night the Giants were deflated, getting crushed by Arizona, 11-0, here at AT&T.

Nice run, guys. Nobody predicted you’d be in the race, so take a bow and step away.

That’s not the Giants. We see them collapse, give them their last rites and then watch in bewilderment and admiration as they prove to be as resilient as any team in baseball.

Sandoval, the Kung Fu Panda, the Bat, was back in the lineup after the flu and a right calf problem. He drove a ball into the left field bleachers in the fifth, his 20th home run. Eugenio Velez singled home Eli Whiteside in the sixth for the other run.

This on a night when the Giants left seven runners on base in the first two innings. When Lincecum twice failed to move a runner with a sacrifice bunt. When Whiteside’s attempt at a suicide squeeze in the eighth resulted in a double play, a pop up to the first baseman and Juan Uribe getting caught off third.

So many mistakes. But one victory, a win that moved the Giants to within two games of the Rockies in the National League wild card race, a win that made late-August baseball meaningful in San Francisco for the first time in years.

“This was a big game for us,’’ said Bochy, who can be excused for stating the obvious. “Every game is a big game for us from now on. But remember, there’s a lot of baseball left.’’

A lot of baseball that may not let us turn to football. This is the time we’re supposed to think about the 49ers and Raiders, but stubbornly the Giants won’t let us.

They don’t have hitting. In some games, they don’t have fielding. But they have staying power, persistence. It is not to be underestimated.

Lose 11-0 and then 24 hours later win 2-0. This is what you want in a team, the ability to rebound, the ability to struggle and stagger but succeed.

“This is what you play for,’’ agreed Bochy. “This is what you talk about in the early season, being here at this time.’’

The Giants are here. The Giants very much are here. Not for a long while could the postseason even be considered. They could fall quickly, could drop the next two to Colorado. But they also could win the next two and be tied with the Rockies.

The Giants lead the National League in shutouts with 17. It’s a sporting axiom that if the other team doesn’t score, you’re not going to lose.

“We’re the team behind,’’ reminded Bochy. “We have to catch them.’’

On Friday night, the Giants were the team ahead. On Friday night, baseball in San Francisco was thoroughly entertaining and completely satisfying.