Giants new president believes in winning, not stars

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — He came on purposefully and quietly, which seems to be Farhan Zaidi’s way — if not the way Giants fans might wish the team’s new president to act.

The Giants have had consecutive losing seasons, interest declining along with attendance. You might then expect Zaidi, hired away from the dreaded Dodgers, to make a boast or two about how he is going to turn the Giants into the champions they used to be.

Maybe a mention of Bryce Harper or a suggestion about Madison Bumgarner’s future. A tease, a promise, a hint.

But Zaidi, a 41-year-old Canadian who studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and did graduate work at Cal, made no headlines. What he talked about on Tuesday at AT&T Park was making progress.

Zaidi never played baseball in the pros, but he’s played the front-office game, learning with Billy Beane in Oakland, then working as GM of the Dodgers, who were in the World Series a second straight year.

But again didn’t win. As opposed to the Giants, who did win the Series in 2010, '12 and '14, making us remember Beane’s sad words after the A’s were bounced in the early 2000s that the postseason is a crapshoot.

“Bittersweet,” Zaidi called the Dodgers’ everything-but-the-championship years. “Coming up short. But you’d like to get to the doorstep every year and take your chances.”

The Giants don’t seem to taking any chances with Zaidi. He knows the landscape. The Dodgers play the Giants 19 times a season. He knows what succeeds, attention to detail, rebuilding a depleted farm system. No move is too small, though the Giants' home run output was.

“The message," he said, "is to have maximum flexibility in the organization.”

Zaidi is new baseball, analytics — which you would expect from an MIT grad — but he is not opposed to old baseball, which is that the eyeball tells you about a player. So that makes him very accepting of longtime Giants manager Bruce Bochy, whom Zaidi calls “Boch.”

The front office (after discussions and advice) determines who will be on the roster. The manager, said Zaidi, determines who will be on the field.

“That new school-old school potential conflict is oversimplified,” he said. “It’s a convenient narrative to see a class of schools of thought. But I don’t see it that way. We had two managers of the year, Bob Melvin (A’s) and Dave Roberts.

“The game is hard. Managing is real hard. Fans wonder why a guy swung at a slider down and away. As somebody who doesn’t have the most illustrious playing career on his resume, I think it’s fair for me to always remember that.”

What Zaidi found out with the thrifty A’s was that "no move is too small not to be worth a certain level of detail.” Baseball is a sport by committee. The lineup counts more than the individual.

The Dodgers and Giants are big-budget teams, but the money must be spent wisely.

“I feel fans want to see a winning team, and winning drives up attendance,” said Zaidi. ”Just try to put together a good baseball team. Stars will come out of that. What kind of total team you develop is important. I don’t see targeting stars as important as trying to fill a team with good players.”

Zaidi said he owes his career to Beane, who in getting the A’s from the bottom to the playoffs in only a season deservedly was named major league baseball executive of the year. “To be in the same city as Billy is really exciting,” said Zaidi, ignoring the dividing waters of the bay. 

When he accompanied the Dodgers to San Francisco, he walked to the games from Union Square, savoring the opportunity to mix with pedestrians and as he neared AT&T the fans.

“My first major league game,” he recalled, “was in 1987, Candy Maldonado and Will Clark went back-to-back. I thought all games were that exciting.”

They may be again in San Francisco. In part, it’s up to Farhan Zaidi.

San Francisco was McCovey’s city

 SAN FRANCISCO—This was Willie McCovey’s city, where he was idolized and also criticized. Just like San Francisco itself,

   Willie Mays would become appreciated for what he is; one of the three or four greatest ballplayers in history, but early on, Mays was treated as an outsider, coming from New York with the Giants in 1958.

  McCovey arrived a year later, directly from the minors, on an historical day in the summer of ’59 and then added another single and two triples. Monumental.

 What a career, deserving of his place in the Baseball Hall of Fame. What a man. McCovey would befriend every kid who came to his door.

   Willie Mac, the guy we knew as “Stretch" died Wednesday. He was 80. As am I. “Superman, Willie McCovey and you were all born in 1938,” my wife would chide, and I would wait for the punch line.

  But this is not a time for laughs in Bay Area sports. A few days ago, the nonpareil of a sports announcer, Hank Greenwald, passed on. Now one of the athletes whose achievements Greenwald described.

  San Francisco, the entire Bay Area still was transitioning from minor league to major league, seeking an identity, seeking its own heroes.  Orlando Cepeda was one of the first, en route to the Hall of Fame, and then, boom there was McCovey, in effect chasing Cepeda from first base and to the St.Louis Cardinals.

   This was at Candlestick Park before it enclosed, when there were bleachers in right behind a chain-link fence. The wind was strong. McCovey was stronger. He tortured righthanded pitchers, especially the late Don Drysdale of the Dodgers.

     The Warriors coach, Steve Kerr, was a kid in Los Angeles. He remembers listening to the Dodgers announcer, Vin Scully, call some of McCovey’s shots, slashing line drives.

   Another basketball man, Dave Bollwinkel, the onetime coach at  St. Mary’s and now a scout, remembers the day McCovey broke in. “I was 9-years-old,” said Bollwinkel. “I was at Candlestick that day. I won’t forget.”

 We won’t forget McCovey, whose name now is attached to the body of water that links the bay to China Basin near AT&T Park, overseen by his statue, “McCovey Cove.”

   He had wonderful times, a three-time National League home run leader, who was Rookie of the Year in 1959 and an the MVP in 1969. He had difficult times, especially after several knee surgeries left him unable to walk without crutches and kept him from golf, a game he played well enough to be invited to the Pebble Beach AT&T Pro-Am.

   Back in the day, the 1960s, McCovey was big, and a big target of an acerbic non-sports, sports columnist in the San Francisco Chronicle, Charles McCabe, “The Fearless Spectator.”  Willie didn’t like the figurative pounding, but he kept his cool.

  As he did when people mocked him for no reason other than his response to another Giants announcer, Lon Simmons, on the post-game shows. Simmons would pose questions that were set up for quick, positive answers, to which McCovey would say, “That’s right, Lon.”

  Did we hear that from every aleck? “That’s right, Lon,” we did.

  McCovey deep down was a gentleman, old-fashioned in his ideas about sports journalism. The long time baseball writer for the Chronicle was Bob Stevens, who should we say, took a biased approach, as was normal for the era.

  So one year, when I subbed for Stevens on a road trip, McCovey was critical of the umpires calls in a tight game. I enthusiastically scribbled a few words, and the story papered. Willie Mac was disillusioned.

  “I didn’t know you were going to write that,” McCovey told me.

 “But, Willie, you saw me taking notes.”

 “Yes, but Bob Stevens wouldn’t have written it.”

  McCovey wrote into our memory books. His line drive, not that high despite embellishment over the years, was grabbed by the Yankees Bobby Richardson for the final out of the 1962 World Series. So tough, for Giants fans, for McCovey.

“I don’t think anybody could have felt as bad as I did,” he told Karen Crouse of the New York Times years later “Not only did I have a whole team on my shoulders in that at-bat, I had a whole city. At the time, I just knew I’d be up in that situation again in the future and that then I was going to come through.”

  He never had the chance. But we were fortunate. We had the chance to see McCovey perform. Thanks, Willie.

A’s Beane: Analytics have turned baseball into a chess match

By Art Spander

OAKLAND, Calif. — Billy Beane is an early-to-bed guy. He was asleep at 11:10 on Friday night, which of course meant the Oakland Athletics exec missed the last few innings of the marathon, the longest World Series game ever, 18 innings, 7 hours and 20 minutes — or 12:30 a.m. PDT, more than an hour after Beane dozed off.

But the man is wide awake when it counts. He knew the Dodgers won that game 3-2, on Max Muncy’s home run. OK, there are videos, the Internet, newspapers. But he also knows why games are running so long, if not quite as long as that one. And how to build a winning team.

“No doubt analytics really contributed to the length,” said Beane. “It’s turned baseball into a chess match. Offenses are built to see a lot of pitches. They don’t swing at the first pitch. They’re built to wear out pitching staffs.”

And, one might surmise, wear out fans. Hey, it was 3:30 a.m. in Boston when that game ended Friday night/Saturday morning with the only Dodgers win in the Series.

Beane, the executive of baseball operations; general manager David Forst; and manager Bob Melvin were brought together at the Coliseum on Monday to discuss both their recently announced contract extensions and the great season of 2018, when Oakland won 97 games.

If that was 11 games and one World Series championship fewer than the Red Sox, well, as Beane affirmed, “Boston had a great team.”

A team that not only was dominant from opening day but also made it successfully through the postseason, which Oakland over the years, with its roster including Miguel Tejada, Barry Zito, Jason Giambi and other stars, couldn’t do against the Yankees.

That’s when Beane, properly downhearted, referred to the playoffs as a crapshoot, which in a sense they are because teams built for 162 games can be eliminated in five games. And even though the Red Sox were a deserving winner this year, Beane has not altered his opinion.

In the 2001 best-of-five American League Division Series, Oakland won the first two games. In New York. But in Game 3, the Yankees won 1-0, when New York shortstop Derek Jeter, who shouldn’t have been there, went to right field to relay a throw to home plate that cut down Jeremy Giambi.

The train couldn’t be stopped. The Yankees won the next in Oakland and the last in New York. The A’s were out.

Just as this year, in the American League division and championship series, defending champions Houston, New York and Cleveland were out.

“The Dodgers,” said Beane, “could make a quantitative augment they were the best team in the National League. In the American League, there really were four good teams. Cleveland gets booted out by Houston, which is a really good team. The Yankees get beat by Boston. And we won 97 games.”

Enough to get into the wild card against the Yankees — and lose the one game.

“But Boston was the best team,” Beane restated. “I was glad Mookie Betts hit a home run the last game. This guy’s as great a player there is. He was 0-for 13.”

Beane reminded that Barry Bonds hit .292 in the regular season with Pittsburgh in 1991 and .148, 4 for 27, in the playoffs that year, which, naturally the Pirates lost. The crapshoot.

“But it was a fun World Series," said Beane, taking the broad view. “Baseball has been turned into a science, but it’s still an art, too.”

What the A’s turned it into the past season was a joyful blend of hitting and pitching. And defense. Four A's, Matt Chapman, Matt Olson, Jed Lowrie and Marcus Semien, were Gold Glove finalists. Some of the names were different two years ago, when the balls the A’s didn’t bobble they threw away.

“These guys, especially Marcus, put in a lot of work,” said Melvin. “It feels pretty good based on where the defense was previous to that. We completely turned the page.”

The A’s knew they were good when they finished two series against Houston, the Yankees and the Blue Jays at .500.

“And we won the season series from the Red Sox,” said Melvin, “That certainly makes us think that going forward we can be there. We have confidence.”

And a GM who doesn’t like to stay up late.

A’s oblivious to everything except winning

By Art Spander

OAKLAND, Calif. — Yes, gone. With only a few traces. The baseball diamond still was there, most of all the dirt infield that the NFL teams despise, the last one. But already, an hour after the A’s home stand had ended, the scoreboard was showing the Raiders, who won’t be there until Friday.

That’s the way it is for the Oakland Athletics, second-class citizens of the Coliseum. The best baseball team in the Bay Area, in California — at least the California team with the best record — the fourth-best record in the major leagues, and to borrow that ancient but poignant Rodney Dangerfield comment about himself, they get no respect.

You think a few minutes after the conclusion of a Raiders game in Oakland the scoreboard would be flashing an upcoming A’s game? Not a chance.

But the A’s seem oblivious to slight, as they are to everything else, small crowds, a ballpark that’s really a football stadium, the leaking toilets — since repaired — and an occasional defeat, as was the case Wednesday, when Oakland fell to the Texas Rangers, 4-2.

The A’s are thinking big, as in big picture, as in the World Series. Baseball is a sport of percentages, not of perfection. You’re going to lose games, a lot of them when you play 162. The key is to win two-thirds of the time; especially when, as for the A’s, it gives a team one series after another — for Oakland, 18 of 19, virtually unheard of. Other than the Red Sox.

And going away for a week doesn’t faze the Athletics. “We’re one of the best teams in the league on the road,” said catcher Jonathan Lucroy, “and we have a built-in home field advantage here because it’s a graveyard. Teams don’t like playing here.”

He apparently was referring to the way balls don’t travel well, other than for day games, not to a burial location, although there is something about the stadium that makes its occupants think of final resting places. Long ago, players for the great A’s teams of the 1980s called it the mausoleum.

Into the mix for the A’s is the announcement from president Dave Kaval that the team has hired a Danish architectural firm, Barke Ingels Group (BIG), to design the new ballpark that someday may be constructed someplace. Maybe it will look like a pastry or a hunk of smoked salmon.

What the A’s look and sound like is a team brimming with self-belief, which is understandable. The more you win, the more confidence you have, and the more confidence you have, the more you win. That is if you have pitching, of course.

In the previous two games of the series, the A’s shut out the Rangers. Wednesday quickly ended any thought of that occurring a third straight time when the first man up for Texas, Shin-soo Choo, homered.

The Rangers built the margin to 4-0, but in the ninth, the crowd of 13,139 having shrunk, Oakland loaded the bases without a hit. A bit of excitement, but not a victory.

“It would have been nice to finish off the third one,” said Bob Melvin, the A’s manager, about the last game in this series and the Houston series, “but looking at the home stand, and the series, we’ll take two out of three.

“It’s gotten to the point where we know who we are and what’s going on around us. We’re not looking down the road. We are just trying to win the game at hand. I think that’s what this team does best.”

Lucroy offered affirmation. “We shouldn’t scoreboard watch," he said, "just worry about the game we’re playing."

They lost that game on Wednesday. And then, as the players headed to the airport, the Coliseum was being reconfigured for a Raiders exhibition game.

Pence on winning hit: ‘Like a kid on Christmas morning’

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — He’s 35, and from some of his swings of late, hopeless rips at balls around his shoulders, and that sub-.200 batting average, Hunter Pence looked like a man whose career was coming to an end.

Which his critics, pounding on him via social media, said would be a good idea.

Sure, he had some great times with the Giants, but you have to deal with the present, don’t you? And Pence is of the past, right? Why send down Mac Williamson and keep Pence and his big contract?

Because he’s a leader. And it you listen to his teammates in the clubhouse — or watched them bounce from the dugout to swarm around Pence in the bottom of the 11th on Sunday at AT&T Park — he’s also a winner.

There were the Giants, down a run with one out and nobody on. As Pence said, “It happens real quick in baseball. You’ve got to be ready for anything.” Especially an unsuspected Giants comeback for a 3-2 win over the San Diego Padres that could be called the biggest of this season.

Andrew McCutchen doubled. Buster Posey, naturally, was walked intentionally — he’d already had a single and double — and, whoa, Brandon Crawford was hit by a pitch. Bases loaded, yes, but Pence, with a groundout and two strikeouts coming to the plate against Brad Hand, one of the game’s better closers.

“Getting an opportunity like that, bases loaded, one out, down a run,” Pence would say afterward, “it’s being a kid on Christmas morning for me. There’s a lot of responsibility, but that’s what you dream of.”

He bounced one just inside the first base line, McCutchen and Posey scored, Pence would get a double and the Giants would get the series win, three games to one.

First we learn Johnny Cueto is progressing in rehab, then we watch the Pence and the Giants perform a mini-miracle.

Ballplayers with the experience and residual success of Hunter Pence view things differently than most of us. They don’t think so much about what they haven’t done, the .193 batting average after coming back from the disabled list, but what can be done.

“I don’t really harp on that,” he said about statistics that have to be called negative. “I play to go win the game. Since I came back (he was out with a sprained thumb, then had to rehab), I got a chance to start. I’ve had better days. My pinch hitting is not as good as I want it to be. But I just want to be as prepared as I can.

“By the end of the year, the numbers will be what they will be.”

The numbers Sunday for Giants starter Dereck Rodriguez were interesting. He gave up a homer on a 3-2 pitch to the first man to step into the batter’s box at AT&T, Manuel Margot. Yikes, 1-0 instantly.

But that was it for a long while. Rodriguez — yes, son of Hall of Fame catcher Pudge Rodriguez — went six innings.

“That was a lot of fun,” said Dereck. “My curve ball was the best it’s been. I’d rather have the leadoff guy hit a home run and shut them down the rest of the way than have a guy hit one in the sixth inning.”

The win kept the Giants above .500 in the standings, and while that’s not quite what will win a title, it’s a psychological barrier they must surpass. It makes them winners, in fact as well as in mind, and with a ton of home games coming up they might become a presence.

“We had to find a way to win that game,” said Giants manager Bruce Bochy. “You want to stay away from the strikeout. When you put a ball in play, good things happen.”

The Giants have a rare and necessary day off on Monday. Bochy probably will go fishing. 

Pence may just reflect.

“I’m not going to get super-down on myself,” said Pence. “It’s a team game. You want to do your best for the team and the city. I focus on being a good person, and the rest will take care of itself.”

It definitely did on Sunday.

The Panda gives Giants what they were lacking

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — Now and then, you see one of those black-and-white panda hats. Not in abundance, like the glory days for the Panda, Pablo Sandoval, and the Giants. But often enough to serve as a reminder of the way it was. And for the guys in the clubhouse, the way it is once more.

Yes, after that 2014 season, the last World Series season in San Francisco — and there was Sandoval grabbing a foul popup near third for the final out — the Panda wanted more loving or more money or something, and not only joined the Red Sox but departed the Bay Area by tossing a few insults at the Giants organization.

But Boston was no place for Sandoval. And when the Red Sox waived him, his weight too large, his batting average too low — and were responsible for a large hunk of the large contract ($90 million) he had signed — the Giants figured it made sense to see what the man can do.

The idea turned out to be brilliant. Not only because with Evan Longoria out for several weeks with a broken hand, Sandoval is starting at third — after also playing first and, glorioski, even second base.

Not only because Sandoval is hitting .281 with six homers.

Not only because Sandoval was intentionally walked in the sixth when the Giants broke loose for five runs in their 6-5 win over Miami on Wednesday.

But maybe most importantly because Sandoval provides the spirit and camaraderie that at times was lacking as the Giants in 2017 collapsed to a 98-loss season.

“Sometimes you can’t put a value on this,” said Brandon Belt. “He’s accepted his role with humility. He keeps everything loose. He keeps you in the right frame of mind.”

Belt, feeling strong again after that emergency appendectomy a couple weeks ago, had three hits including a double in that big sixth, which — and you’ve heard this before about games at AT&T Park, where this one was played — might have been a home run at many other parks.

“We won,” said Belt, cutting to the chase. That they did, winning another series at home (they haven’t dropped one here since early April) and once more creeping to within a game of a .500 record.

They won because with Brandon Crawford away on paternity leave (he returns Thursday), and after consecutive night games Monday and Tuesday following a long trip, both Andrew McCutchen and Buster Posey getting a day off, Belt, Nick Hundley, Gorkys Hernandez and, from out of the past, Hunter Pence had notable offensive games.

They won because starter Derek Holland allowed only three runs in six innings and, this is repetitive, pitching wins. Look, the Giants didn’t score until the sixth — the Marlins’ starter, Jose Urena, was sharp — but San Francisco still only trailed 1-0.

“What a job Holland did,” said Giants manager Bruce Bochy.

Bochy also was excited by Gorkys Hernandez’s extended and successful at bat in the sixth, which lasted 13 pitches and concluded with a single to center that scored San Francisco’s fourth and fifth runs.

These Giants may not be leading the standings, but they do know to work a count. Belt set a record by standing in for 21 pitches earlier this season. Now, Hernandez goes 13. That requires a good eye and plenty of patience.

“Gorkys’ at bat was huge for us,” said Belt. “We needed those runs.”

The Giants’ leadoff batter in the first, Alen Hanson, a switch hitter, took a big lefthanded swipe at a Urena pitch, fell and injured his left knee severely enough that he had to be replaced by Kelby Tomlinson.

Another injury, after broken hands on pitches for Longoria and Madison Bumgarner and then reliever Hunter Strickland stupidly punching a wall, busting his. Cursed? Not really, said Bochy. Hanson will be sore but available. Those things happen.

So, for the Giants, do situations like Monday’s game, when ahead 4-0 in the second, they wound up losing 5-4.

Easy then to get depressed, to carry the gloom to the next game — or even for weeks. But not with the Panda around. “You need guys like that,” said Belt.

And once again, the Giants have him.

Good team, bad crowds: A’s really need that ballpark

By Art Spander

OAKLAND, Calif. — For the Oakland Athletics, every home game breaks down to two stories: how they do on the field, which on Thursday was excellent, a 4-3 win over the Seattle Mariners; and how they do at the gate, where, well, on this afternoon it was better — and, yes, you are allowed to ask, “Better than what?”

For a start, better than Wednesday evening, when the A’s drew an announced attendance of 6,991. On Thursday, the total was 12,663, which admittedly isn’t all that much, but the weather has been lousy, the kids still are in school and the Bay Area seems obsessed with the Warriors, understandably.

The A’s aren’t the only team with great blocks of empty seats. Click the TV remote and you see that various stadiums, including Cincinnati, have plenty of unfilled seats.

But every other team has its own ballpark, and as we are too aware on this 50^th anniversary of the Athletics moving here from Kansas City, the A’s do not.

Technically, they have a place to play, the Coliseum, which for a long while, until the Raiders returned from their first departure, was satisfactory, if not charming.

Then, the city and county, on Al Davis' behalf, had that huge stand erected in center field, or the east sideline if you prefer, and the Coliseum, unwanted by anyone, became — taking into account the A’s color, their mascot and the adage — a huge green elephant.

Management has tried to make the best of a bad thing, creating a tavern in upper left field known as the Tree House and devising other ideas to attract people. So far, no luck.

The A’s just don’t resonate, even though they are above .500 and have players who are both competent and interesting.

One of those is Blake Treinen, who Thursday as the fifth of five A’s pitchers — manager Bob Melvin again doing his sleight of hand to overcome injuries — recorded his sixth multi-inning save, highest in the majors.

“This was a great team win,” said Treinen. More specifically, it was a great bullpen win, with Josh Lucas, Chris Hatcher, winner Yusmeiro Petit, Lou Trevino and Treinen coming and going out of necessity. Starters such as Andrew Triggs and Brett Anderson, meanwhile, are on the disabled list.

“We had to do this a few times,” said Melvin of his rotating pitchers. “We’ve had some practice at it.”

And too many times, when at the Coliseum they’ve had to play in front of crowds too small for a major league team, leading a journalist to ask Treinen his opinion of the team’s struggle for spectators. I mean, 6,991? In a stadium configured for some 35,000, that can’t be any fun for a guy in the bigs.

“I don’t know if it’s anything that relates to us,” Treinen said diplomatically about the athletes. “We’re just trying to play baseball and win games. That (drawing fans) takes care of itself. We have marketing for that.”

What they don’t have, however, is a fan base, a mass of season-ticket holders. There was a sellout early in the season of seats that weren’t sold, freebies for one and all. The hope was that people would come back. For some games, they have. For many others, they have not.

We keep hearing that the new ballpark is the answer. But it’s been like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, a promise that's never fulfilled.

The A’s had a plan for a place near Lake Merritt, at Laney College, but of course it was rejected because anything logical and beneficial gets trashed in Oakland and Berkeley. Yet Berkeley is a nuclear-free zone, as if people drive around with plutonium in their back seat.

Now the thought is to erect a ballpark on a dock of the bay, the Howard Street Terminal. A lot of negatives: no BART line close by, cold weather — it was 57 degrees at first pitch Friday, real balmy. But build it, presumably, and they will come.

Year after year the A’s, on the figurative poverty line, keep winning games and keep losing stars, Oakland unable to give young players the salaries that match their skills. “As soon as we get that ballpark,” we’re told repetitively.

Well, get it. Or at the least show us for sure that you’re going to get it.

Look, in 1979, before the Haas family saviors bought the team from Charlie Finley, the A’s once had a crowd of 695. So it’s been worse. But 6,991 is bad enough. It’s time to get something done.

Giants offense may be as good as they hoped

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — Only one game, but what a game. A game that might lead to a trend and, at the least, stopped a three-game losing streak. A game in which the offense that the Giants hoped they had, an offense the Giants needed, was alive and well.

This Giants lineup is supposed to be good, perhaps outstanding. Buster Posey, Brandon Belt and Brandon Crawford already were there. Then they added Andrew McCutchen and Evan Longoria, and the days of losing 2-1 or 3-2 — or, worse, 1-0 — were supposed to be over.

Technically, they were, but in the previous three games before Saturday the Giants scored, in order, three runs, three runs and one run, a total of seven. And they lost all three.

But finally, everything clicked. Balls were flying into the corners. Players were flying around the bases.

Brandon Crawford had a home run, double, single and four runs batted in. The other Brandon, Belt, had two hits and an RBI. McCutchen had two doubles and a single. Miguel Gomez, the fill-in second baseman (and in the ninth inning, an outfielder), had two hits and two runs scored.

And most importantly, the Giants had a 9-4 win over the Rockies at AT&T Park, where the wind was reminiscent of Candlestick Park and the victory reminiscent of those World Series years.

“It takes time,” said Giants manager Bruce Bochy of the team's hitting. “These guys are good, but this is what we were expecting. They’re good hitters.”

In the early part of this ’18 season, Belt has been an excellent hitter. He has 10 home runs. He’s hitting .308. He has 26 RBI.

“I thought this is where I could be,” said Belt, 30, in his eighth season with San Francisco. “But until now, it hasn’t been the case. I feel comfortable at bat.”

Belt worked on his swing during spring training. He’s always been a patient hitter, as that record 21-pitch at bat against the Angels showed recently. Now he’s more aggressive.

Surely having Buster Posey (.307 after two hits Saturday) ahead of him in the lineup and Even Longoria after him (although Longoria so far has to match what people were hoping) has aided Belt.

You look at the Dodgers, Joc Pederson, Yasmani Grandal, Cody Bellinger, Yasiel Puig and once again Justin Turner, and you find power and consistency, what seemingly the Giants lacked and a reason L.A. finished 40 games ahead of San Francisco a year ago.

But now, the Giants have some punch.

“We’re better this year,” said Bochy, “and we’re not there yet. We haven’t hit our stride.”

Crawford, the All-Star shortstop, is hitting his — and hitting the ball. He was 3-for-5 Saturday with a home run and four RBI.

Nothing is permanent in sport. A kicker may change his steps on field goals, a golfer the angle of his swing. Unintentionally, of course. Crawford said he got advice from teammates, including Pablo Sandoval, and raised his bat ever so slightly. His batting average has been raised more than slightly, to .302.

“And our bullpen has been really good,” said Bochy, knowing full well in the end that pitching wins games. On Saturday, Will Smith, back after a year following Tommy John surgery, Pierce Johnson, Sam Dyson and Tony Watson didn’t give up a run after they followed starter Chris Stratton, who went five innings and gained the victory.

After Sunday, the Giants go on the road. They’ll be around the .500 mark. Madison Bumgarner is throwing again. Jeff Samardzija appears to have regained his touch. 

Maybe there’s a summer of success on the horizon.

Bochy has a new view of McCutchen and Longoria

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — The thinking last year, misled as it might have been, was that the Giants would sign Giancarlo Stanton, the free agent with the big bat. But of course he went to the Yankees, so San Francisco ended up trading for Evan Longoria and Andrew McCutchen, who, well, aren’t Giancarlo Stanton.

But as Giants manager Bruce Bochy explained, they have attributes that, from the opposing dugout, were not as apparent as they have turned out to be.

Numbers were only part of the equation, said Bochy on a Monday night when the Giants returned from an awful road trip — they were almost zero for Pennsylvania — and, in un-Giants-like style, got home runs, doubles and a 10-7 victory over the Cincinnati Reds.

McCutchen, obtained from Pittsburgh, had a couple of those doubles, his 1,499th and 1,500th hits in the majors. Longoria, who came from Tampa Bay, had the other and a single.

After the victory that pushed the Giants back to .500 (21-21), Bochy gave a baseball man’s observations about skills that a fan or journalist may not understand.

“When you watch those great players with tremendous talent, from the other side,” said Bochy, “you are hoping they don’t hurt you and beat you in some way. But you do appreciate the talent they have. Until you have a chance to see them on an everyday basis, to work with them, you don’t appreciate how good they are.

“Five-tool players (hit, run, throw, field, hit with power). The ball (McCutchen) hit in center would have been out of every other ballpark. He’s got speed. Doing a great job in right field. You watch those guys every day and have a basis on how good they are.”

They had company. In the eighth inning of a game that would feature 27 hits, Brandon Belt hit his seventh home run of the season. Earlier shortstop Brandon Crawford, who would have been rested if so many infielders weren’t injured, had two doubles and drove in two runs.

The evening was unusual. The small crowd (36,156 announced) seemed just as interested — maybe more interested — in the Warriors' playoff victory over the Houston Rockets.

A 3.5 earthquake centered across the bay in Oakland was felt in the stands. And the Giants, after losing six in a row at Philly and Pittsburgh, won their second in a row.

“We played well tonight,” affirmed Bochy, who was less happy with the performances on the road. “It’s tough travel coming back from Pittsburgh. But we were ready to play. I just loved the energy.”

And the runs. Every time it appeared the Giants would break things open, going in front 6-1 in the third, then 10-4 in the eighth, the Reds, who were on a six-game win streak and had swept the Dodgers in L.A., got close — if never in front.

“It was important we got those runs,” said Bochy. “Important to start a home stand this way.”

Chris Stratton was the Giants' starter, but he came out after five innings, having been battered for two homers and four runs.

“We’re fortunate we hit tonight,” said Bochy, “because they were scoring runs too. Those are the things that win ballgames, clutch hitting. Really through our lineup, we have professional hitters who know how to drive in runs. They have a nose for an RBI.”

On the 4-6 trip (which started with three wins in Atlanta, followed by four losses in Philly and two more in Pittsburgh), the Giants had a nose for the strikeout. Then Sunday, they beat the Pirates 5-0. Exhale.

Everything that went wrong suddenly went right. On Monday, catcher Buster Posey threw out Rosell Herrera trying to steal in the sixth, halting a Reds rally.

“To me, that was on one of the turning points of the game,” said Bochy. “That was a beautiful throw.”

Tough teams ahead, but A’s Melvin wants to savor a sweep

By Art Spander

OAKLAND, Calif. — So there was Bob Melvin, a few moments after Oakland beat the Baltimore Orioles 2-1 Sunday at the Coliseum, sweeping the three-game series, getting an earful.

Yes, the pitching had been excellent, the defense effective. But, Bob, that was the O’s, who are “O-ful,” or worse than that. Now you’ve got some real major-league teams to play, starting Monday night with Houston, the World Series champion.

And after three games against the Astros, you go on the road, Bob, to play the Yankees, Red Sox and Blue Jays, the three best teams in the American League.  

That ought to bring you back to reality, if not back to the lower reaches of the standings.

“I was going to try to enjoy the win today,” said the A’s manager, “before I get to that.”

The Orioles are a bad team — only eight wins in the last 34 games, 17 games behind the Red Sox and we’re barely into the merry month of May.

Still, as the axiom advises, wins over the patsies count as much as wins over the contenders. And a year ago, the A’s were the patsy.

Now, they’re two games above .500, capable, respectable.

In the last two games against the O’s, Oakland pitching allowed one run total, which was necessary since the A’s only scored four. Yet good teams find a way, especially if they have pitching. 

“We didn’t swing the bats all that well,” agreed Melvin after the last two victories, 2-0 on Saturday, on Khris Davis’ two-run homer in the 12th, then 2-1 on Sunday. “That happens during the course of the season. But the pitching was there. It’s all a matter of timing.”

Someone asked about the sweep, unusual in baseball, where two out of three gets you to the postseason. “You go into the series looking at each game individually,” said Melvin, “but once you win the first two, you obviously want to sweep the series.”

A matter of timing. And control. In his last start, Andrew Triggs went 4 2/3 innings and gave up three walks and four runs. On Sunday, Triggs pitched seven innings and didn’t allow a walk and just the one run, a homer by Pedro Alvarez in the second.

“He went deeper in the game than I’ve seen him go,” said Melvin. Well, since he hadn’t gone past the sixth this season, deeper in the game than anyone’s seen him go.

“He kept his pitch count low,” said Melvin of Triggs, who threw 96 pitches. “And he kept batters off balance both sides of the plate.”

Lou Trivino, up from Triple-A Nashville only a few days ago, pitched the eighth and was no less efficient than Triggs, retiring three batters in order.

Then things got interesting in the ninth when, with Blake Treinen having replaced Trivino, pinch hitter Trey Mancini hit a ball that went too far but not far enough and, before A’s catcher Jonathan Lucroy could field it, became an infield hit.

“It took a high hop and came back,” said Melvin, “like a sand wedge shot.”

Help! Send in Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson. Nah, Treinen could handle it. After a fashion.

A Treinen wild pitch got Mancini to second. He then was sacrificed to third. After Jace Peterson grounded out, Mancini holding, up came Manny Machado, who at .354 (with 9 homers) literally was one of only two Baltimore starters bating above .209.

Melvin, no dummy, ordered Machado walked. 

Then — exhale — Chris Davis (not to be confused with Oakland’s Khris Davis) flied out. 

“You don’t want to be in that situation,” Melvin said of the ninth-inning troubles, “but if there’s anybody with the weapons to get the ball down on the ground, it’s Treinen.”

Triggs said his previous game, against the Mariners, “stuck in his craw.” It’s now unstuck, and the A’s are creeping forward.

Which certainly is better than the reverse.

Giants ahead of last year — and ahead of the Dodgers

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — Bruce Bochy had his own vision. ”We’re not where we were hoping to be,” said the Giants manager. But they’re ahead of last year and ahead of the Dodgers, which isn’t all that bad.

Especially considering the start — two weeks ago, they had lost four more games than they had won. Especially considering the injuries — no Johnny Cueto or Jeff Samardzija for a while, and still no Madison Bumgarner.

But there they are after Sunday’s 4-2 win over the Dodgers, winners of three straight series, winners of six of 10 from Los Angeles — ridiculous that two teams play each other 10 times in April, even historical rivals — and at .500 for the season as May approaches.

Oh yeah, for those whose vocabulary consists of two words, “Beat L.A.,” a chant heard frequently among the sellout crowd of 42,020 at AT&T Park, although a sizeable percentage was heard cheering, “Let’s go Dodgers,” the Giants, supposed also-rans, are 14-14, compared to the 12-15 of the defending National League champion Dodgers.

It’s early. That’s the baseball mantra whether you’re off to a good start or a poor start. But this start has to be encouraging, with Evan Longoria doing what was needed when they got him in a trade over the winter, and Brandon Belt showing patience (that 21-pitch at bat against the Angels) and power (a run-scoring double Sunday and six home runs).

The Giants are getting the long ball. The Giants are getting solid pitching, Ty Blach going six innings, giving up six hits and two runs; then competent work by Sam Dyson and Tony Watson, and then Hunter Strickland, the closer, going 1-2-3 in the ninth.

That’s what the Giants couldn’t do a year ago, burst with a big home run, then cut off an opponent’s rally. You’ve got to hit the ball out of the park these days. You’ve always had to shut down the other team if you’ve had the lead in the ninth.

On Saturday, the Giants and Dodgers had a long day’s journey into night, a makeup of a rainout and then a scheduled game, a day-night doubleheader. And in the afternoon, the Giants gave up 15 runs for the second time in three games.

The argument could be made then that the win in the second game, a true nightcap as the announcers used to call them with play not starting until 7:30 p.m., was San Francisco’s biggest game of the spring.

Down early, the Giants won. They had a chance Sunday to get to .500, and they made good use of the opportunity. Being even is so much bigger psychologically than being one game below.

“Both teams were tired,” said Bochy of the Saturday marathon. “Longoria’s homer gave us a jump start. We wanted to get on the board first. You always want to score early. That home run was big.”

So was Blach, who had that opening-day shutout of the Dodgers, then lost to them and has now beat them again.

“One of those things,“ said Bochy of Blach’s effectiveness against L.A. “I’m sure he gets caught up in the tension. The fans get into it, here or down there. He just seems to pick it up against them. He’s getting back to who he is.”

So is Longoria, who was struggling, perhaps trying too hard to prove that the Giants made the right deal in acquiring him. He was fifth in the batting order Sunday, behind Buster Posey, who was third, and Belt. In the first inning, with two outs and nobody on, Posey doubled, Belt walked and Longoria hit his sixth homer of the young season.

“It’s always up to the heart of the order over the course of a season to drive in runs,” said Bochy. “That’s what they’re there for, what they’re paid to do. Sure the table-setters get on, but those guys ... you lean on those guys.”

Those guys give the other guys, the pitchers, the ability to throw the ball without worrying that every run will be critical, even thought with the Giants it’s usually the situation.

“When we have a lead, like we had, we can attack,” said Blach. “We don’t have to be as fine. A lot of guys are contributing. There’s depth in the lineup.”

And success, if minimal, on the field.

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.

The week that was for the suddenly relevant A’s

By Art Spander

OAKLAND, Calif. — The problem was irrelevancy. The Oakland Athletics seemed less in danger of dropping in the standings than dropping out of sight. Or out of mind.

Virtually the only stories about the A’s were negative, dealing with the search for a ballpark location and attendance woes. What, only 9,157 against the World Series champion Astros? Even fewer against the Rangers and White Sox?

Then came the Week That Was, the week the A’s made noise and made news, from a let-’em-watch-for-free capacity crowd of 46,000-plus at the Coliseum to that 14-inning, nearly six-hour win, to a no-hitter by Sean Manaea, to a series victory over the supposedly unbeatable Boston Red Sox.

Yes, after Sunday’s 4-1 win over Boston, the A’s had won six of seven, one at Seattle (that was Manaea’s also) and then five of the six at Oakland; had evened their record at 11-11; had a clubhouse full of media asking how all this happened and had manager Bob Melvin agreeing as the team prepared to fly to Texas, “This was a nice home stand.”

Absolutely. This was a home stand when the pitching caught up with the hitting. In the last two games, the Red Sox scored just two runs. It’s well understood in whatever sport you choose, if the opponent doesn’t score you can’t lose.

Fans? After the Tuesday freebie — if nothing else, that proved there are people out there who will come to A’s games, night or day, warm or cold, short or long — the gate slipped to 13,321 in that marathon on Wednesday, then 23,473 on Friday night against Boston, 25,746 for the no-hit night against Boston and 29,804 on Sunday against Boston.

True, a decent percentage were those semi-obnoxious New England expatriates who fled the weather and congestion back east and show up in California as if they’re the only people who know the difference between Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio (both California natives, of course). But as Oakland management understands, a ticket sold is a ticket sold, no matter the buyer’s personal preferences.

This is what the A’s got on a Sunday when the first-pitch temperature was in the 70s and the post-game music as the kids (and not a few parents) ran the bases was from the Beatles:

• A beautiful job of pitching by starter Daniel Mengden (he of waxed mustache and fine curve) and, after he came out after 6 1/3 innings, by relievers Yusmeiro Petit, Ryan Buchter and Blake Treinen (the winner).
• Great leadoff batting by shortstop Marcus Semien, who began the first with a single and scored, then with one out in the eighth singled and scored. “He hits anywhere in the lineup,” said Melvin. “Leadoff against lefties, and he has power.”
• A big blast by Khris Davis, whose home run over the left field fence scored Semien and Stephen Piscotty, who had followed Semien’s single with one of his own. ”Khris hammered the ball,” said Melvin, sounding like a TV producer. “He’s a three-run homer waiting to happen.”

Have to use that line. Hello sweetheart. Get me rewrite.

What Davis got was his sixth home run of the season. “That was one of his biggest,” said Semien of Davis. “I’ve seen him hit walkoffs, grand slams. He has real power.”

What the A’s now have is a feeling of confidence. The Red Sox arrived with a 17-2 record. Accolades were being flung like tea into Boston Harbor back in colonial days. Then poor little stepped-on Oakland takes two out of three, including Sunday's defeat of lefthander David Price, who entered the game with a 1-0 record and a 2.25 earned run average.

Mengden started the day at 2-2 with a 4.50 ERA. It’s now 3.86. ”He’s able to go deep in the game,” said Melvin of Mengden. “He’s learned over the last year not to drown the strike zone.”

Pitching, pitching, pitching.

“It started with us holding them down,” said Melvin. “We know we can score. When we get pitching, our chances are good.”

They got pitching. They got hitting. No less important, they got attention. What a week.

One of 162, but for A’s — in 14 innings — one of a kind

By Art Spander

OAKLAND, Calif. — It was just one of 162 games, but one of a kind. One that lasted seemingly forever. One the Oakland Athletics could have lost — and should have lost. But one to be remembered.

The long season. That’s baseball, but what also is baseball is one game that shows a team’s courage, a team’s ability, a team’s determination. For the A’s, that game very well may have been Wednesday afternoon, in front of a Coliseum crowd that was too small but with a result that was oh so big.

The numbers are remarkable, more than 500 pitches, more than five hours — in fact, at 5:48 very close to six — 49 players used, 14 innings played.

But the number that mattered most was one, the differential that the A’s — once behind 6-1, if early — and trailing most of the game, had in beating the Chicago White Sox, 12-11.

The ultimate run, with two out and the bases loaded in the bottom of the 14th, with darkness approaching, with a position player, Jake Smolinski, warming up in the bullpen because Oakland was out of pitchers, was driven in on a single by Matt Olson, scoring Marcus Semien from third.

A crowd that, including some 3,000 Science of Baseball Education students, was announced at 13,321 but had dwindled to maybe 500. After all, it was 6:25 p.m., long after the first pitch at 12:37.

“Take Me Out to the Ballgame” had been sung twice, in the seventh inning and again in the 14th.

“You come back, you use your entire bullpen, you’re one inning away from using a position player (to pitch),” said A’s manager Bob Melvin, “after fighting that hard, one game seems to mean a little more than the others. This is one of them.”

The night before, the A’s celebrated their 50^th anniversary in Oakland, moving from Kansas City to start the 1968 season. The gates at the Coliseum figuratively were flung open. Tickets were free. Attendance was enormous, 48,592.

In a season of getting off the mat, of possible progress for a needed stadium, of re-grabbing the interest and success of the 1980s, even of the mid 2000s, that game was momentous. Unlike so much of the Athletics' struggle, it could not be ignored.

And yet it could be argued that from a standpoint of pure baseball, playing the game, no less significantly winning the game, the victory on Wednesday, in the afterglow of Tuesday's excitement, was more newsworthy.

In a virtual vacuum, with the talk about the Sharks and the Warriors, the A’s, apparently headed for a loss, instead swept the White Sox. Not a broom in sight.

“These games,” said Melvin. “I remember I was with the Diamondbacks, we went 18 innings in a 1-0 game at San Francisco. Guys get antsy as the game goes along. They really want to end it and have a tendency to want to be that guy. That’s why the games go on a little bit longer. You don’t have the typical approach. But we did in the last inning.”

With two out and no one on in the 14th, Semien, a Cal guy as is Melvin, singled to left. Jed Lowrie, who had hit a two-run homer in the eighth for a brief 11-10 Oakland lead, came to bat and Semien stole second. Then Lowrie walked and so did Khris Davis, loading the bases.

“In that situation,” Melvin reminded, “it doesn’t take a home run, just finding a patch of grass somewhere.”

That patch was in left field, and Olson, with his fourth hit, found it. Oakland had won its fourth straight.

“It was like a heavyweight fight,” said Olson. “We just kept trading blows the whole game until we found a way to put one across. I’d never been in a game that long. That was a good win for us.

“I had been feeling a little off at the plate and did some extra work in the morning. As the game went on, I started feeling better.”

He went with the pitch by James Shields, the starter forced to pitch relief, and instantly seemed to be swarmed by more teammates than there were people in the stands.

Among the elated was the man who hours before had been the A’s starter, Andrew Triggs, who lasted a mere one and a third innings, getting pummeled for six runs including a grand slam in the second by Yoan Moncada.

“I didn’t have any feel on my pitches and didn’t have command,” said Triggs. “That’s a bad combination. I put us in a hole for sure. I didn’t do my job. But there was a silver lining. We won the game, which hands down is the most important thing.”

Even if it takes a long 14 innings.

Giants: Glass half full, bleachers half empty

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — So we deal with that question of whether the glass is half full or the bleachers are half empty, which they were again Wednesday at AT&T Park when the Giants played well enough to tease but not to win.

These are new times for the San Francisco nine. You lose nearly 100 games, you’re not thinking of championships — unless your brain is half empty — but of progress.

And although the home stand ended with a 7-3 loss to the Goldschmidts, a.k.a., the Diamondbacks, the Giants seem to be improved.

They are 5-6 in this young season. A year ago after 11 games they were 4-7. One small step for the Giants, one big leap for, well, not Hunter Pence, who has lurched and swung (and missed) his away to a .194 batting average so far.

Of course, one of the new guys in town, Evan Longoria, is — yikes —hitting .132.  What’s with these free agents who changed teams and leagues? Longoria and the guy the Giants wanted but didn’t get, Giancarlo Stanton, about to strike out more in two weeks than Joe DiMaggio did in a season?  

Yes, the Giants need power, as verified again by losing to Arizona. On Tuesday night, slumping Paul Goldschmidt of the D-backs hit a ball nearly to Alameda, although the Giants managed to win.

On Wednesday, he hit another just as far for another homer and one far enough for a double, prompting a journalist to semi-seriously ask Giants manager Bruce Bochy whether Goldschmidt ought to be walked at every at bat, as opponents once did with Barry Bonds.

“He was one of the coldest hitters when he came here,” Bochy said of Goldschmidt, who still is only at .190 with two homers. “He took advantage of some mistakes, some pitches up in the strike zone. But the guy behind him (A.J. Pollock) has been swinging the bat pretty good (now .283), and you don’t want to start putting a lot of guys on right away.”

The Giants had their own guys on, early, and Buster Posey hit a two-run homer to tie the game, 3-3, in the fifth. But San Francisco is missing its three top starting pitchers, Madison Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija, forcing new kids to start and everyone to work in relief.

The new kids, Tyler Beede on Tuesday night and Andrew Suarez on Wednesday, both making their major league debuts, weren’t bad at all. The bullpen? Can we talk about the attendance (35,041)? Yes, a new era.

In six of their 11 games, the Giants have scored two runs or fewer. So after the Wednesday defeat, someone asked Bochy about the offense, as it were. “These guys are too good,” he replied, implying the hitters will hit eventually.

On the trip, the Giants play the Padres, the Diamondbacks (yes, again) and then the Angels. Scoring a run or two against Los Angeles or Arizona won’t be enough.

“Hunter Pence’s timing is off,” said Bochy, still believing his outfielder can overcome the years and the injuries. “He’s pulling out a little bit. Maybe he’s trying to hit home runs.”

He doesn’t have a single one.

What Sam Dyson is trying to do as a relief pitcher is get batters out when runners are on. In the top of the sixth, he failed. Replacing Suarez after Ketel Marte doubled, Dyson faced Goldschmidt, who banged one off the left field fence for his own double, an RBI and a D-backs lead.

“He’s been up and down,” Bochy said of Dyson. “He’s a guy with experience. We put him in a tight ballgame. We’ve got to get him on track. I’d like to think he’s going to find his game here. That pitch to Goldschmidt was nowhere near where he wanted it.

“This bullpen has been taxed quite a bit. He knew we needed him.“

That they do. They need everybody. They also need a man who can hit home runs like Paul Goldschmidt.

Only an exhibition game? Not Giants-Dodgers

By Art Spander

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Only an exhibition game? Not when the Giants play the Dodgers. Not with the image of Marichal and Roseboro still hovering in the mind. Not with the memories of Reggie Smith climbing into the stands at Candlestick to try and attack a fan. Not with the Dodgers finishing 40 games ahead of the Giants last season.

“You wake up,” said Giants first baseman Brandon Belt, “you know you’re playing the Dodgers and everything changes inside of you.”

What didn’t change was the Dodgers pummeling the Giants, 9-3. Wait, a week ago the Giants pummeled the Dodgers by the same score, 9-3. So that’s it. They end the Cactus League at 1-1. But in truth that’s not it.

Not when a century of history, beginning back when they were the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants, shadows them. Not when tales of Bobby Thomson’s pennant-winning home run, the “shot heard ‘round the world,’ are revived. Not when thoughts of the brawls and the boos never die.

Steven Duggar, the rookie centerfielder, who may or may not be on the roster when the Giants break camp, who Sunday, with Scottsdale Stadium packed to the extreme (12,141) hit his third homer of the spring, sensed that this was no ordinary exhibition.

“There was more buzz,” he said. “You could feel the vibe.”

Once they were in neighboring boroughs in New York City. Then they shifted to California, some 400 miles apart. But for spring training, ever since the Dodgers moved into their complex at Camelback Ranch in Glendale, the clubs are probably separated by only 25 miles.

And their fans are everywhere, attired in Giants black or Dodgers blue — and aren’t those two colors symbolic of the brawling between the teams, and unfortunately occasionally between the fans?

“Beat L.A.” is the normal chant from a Giants crowd. You didn’t hear that Sunday at Scottsdale. What you did hear were boos when Yasiel Puig’s name was announced and after he doubled in the first inning to drive in a run for the Dodgers, one of his two hits.

You also heard, “Let’s go Dodgers.” How did those people get in?  

How Chris Berman, the retired ESPN announcer, a professed Giants fan — you don’t have to be impartial in television — got in was through the Giants. He was invited by team management and even went out to the mound to change pitchers in the seventh inning

“A bit of levity,” said Bruce Bochy, the Giants’ manager.

After last season, the Giants can use some. Last place. The Dodgers in first, en route to the World Series. Spring games are not supposed to mean much — other than Giants vs. Dodgers — but a study of the starting lineups for each team indicates L.A. is far superior.

The heart of Dodgers' order, three through six, is Cody Bellinger (who Sunday had a hit); Puig (who had two hits and an RBI); Yasmani Grandal (who had a home run and two RBI); and Joc Pederson (who was hitless). Puig is batting .400.

The Giants' strength, if they have one, is pitching. Jeff Samardzija started Sunday for San Francisco and was decent for his third start. He did yell at home plate up Mark Ripperger in the second after a pitch was called a ball. The crowd picked up his displeasure and hooted a bit, but that was about it. Other than Samardija’s three walks in the inning.

Samardzija said he enjoyed the reactions of the crowd, which lifted the game from the ordinary. “They had a good turnout,” said Samardzija, of the Dodgers fans, “and we had a great turnout. It gives the game a little more excitement when the fans are into it more.”

Most spring games, Bochy is unconcerned with what occurs. He cared about this one. “We didn’t play that well,” he conceded.

“The rivalry? Look at the sellout. We wish we had played better, but we did beat them at their place. There’s always added interest when these two teams play, a lot of noise.”

Baseball as it should be. The games don’t show in the standings, but they certainly do to the fans.

Piscotty shows what he can do for A’s

By Art Spander

MESA, Ariz. — This was Stephen Piscotty the ballplayer, the man talented enough to be picked in the first round of the major league draft. He still was the humanitarian, the loving son, helping nurse an ailing parent.

But for a short while, he could be viewed like any other big leaguer in spring training, for his performance.

The Piscotty story is sad and heartwarming. The St. Louis Cardinals traded him to the Athletics so he could be close to his mother, who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the disease that struck Lou Gehrig in the late 1930s, and for whom it was labeled.

Piscotty came to bat Saturday with a man on in the second and hit a shot over the fence in left in a Cactus League game at Hohokam Stadium that Oakland eventually would lose to the San Diego Padres, 10-4.

It could be glossed over as just another of the many home runs in the desert during the exhibition schedule. Except it wasn’t. And Piscotty, 27, is not just another ball player, as you must be aware.

This was his first homer of the spring, his first, unofficial as it might be to many, since coming to the A’s in December. A trade that showed that big-time sport, all dollars and show, has a very human side.

“He takes good approach to hitting,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said of Piscotty. “This is spring training, but a home run like that with a new team makes it easier on yourself.”

For the past several months, since Piscotty’s mother, Gretchen, was diagnosed, nothing has been easy. With the loss of muscle control, she requires round-the-clock attention.

She has been attended to by Piscotty’s father, and his two younger brothers, and after the Cardinals consented to send him to Oakland — “That’s what makes the Cardinals one of the class organizations in sports,” A’s executive Billy Beane told the Bay Area News Group — and until spring training began, by Piscotty.

“I knew I’d be gone a few months,” Piscotty said, “but I’ll be back home, Before (at St. Louis) it would have been hard going into the season, leaving and not coming home for eight months.”

A’s management has always wanted Piscotty, who played his high school ball at Amador Valley, over the hills from Oakland, and then developed at Stanford. The opportunity to get him was serendipity.

Maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise that Piscotty would do well against the Padres. As a rookie in 2015, he hit two homers on a Sunday against them at Petco Park. Asked that day if it was his best game as a pro, he responded in classic understatement, “Probably.”

When home, Piscotty is back in the room he once shared with his brothers. “Although,” he said, chuckling, “they’re out of there now.”

Piscotty became engaged in February, and his fiancée helps at the family home. A bad situation, a terrible situation — there is no known cure for ALS, but Piscotty has helped create a fund for research — has become tolerable.

He is playing his sport, and for a team for which he cheered as a kid, and he has been able to reconnect with his mother.

"I thought, if I were to get traded, this is the absolute best option for me and my family," Piscotty told MLB.com after the transaction. "I think the best word that sums up a lot of our emotions is bittersweet. We're pretty emotionally tied and invested in [the Cardinals'] organization, so it's sad to kind of cut ties with that. But I think family comes first, obviously, and sometimes there are things more important than baseball.”

For Austin Jackson, a new team and old values

By Art Spander

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — He was out there for the first time this spring training, and Austin Jackson, whose career includes a World Series — against the Giants, no less — and a catch so spectacular it’s a YouTube staple, went about it as the major leaguer that he is.

A new team, a new season, but old values. Only an exhibition game, but in effect a way of life. You’re always on display.

In his final season, 1951, Joe DiMaggio was asked why he played so hard when at his age, 36, and with a bad leg he could have eased up a bit. “There may be some kid who never saw me play before,” supposedly was DiMaggio’s answer.

Austin Jackson understands. His teams, a half dozen of them — the Giants, with whom he signed in January, are his sixth — have been winners. “I take a lot of pride in that,” he said. “Anytime you’re on the field, you want to win. You’ve got to have passion and respect for the game. It’s ingrained in us.”

In Jackson’s first Cactus League game of 2018, the Giants were not winners. They were beaten by the Angels, 11-4, in a game that was 0-0 in the fifth. Jackson, starting in center field, went 0-for-2.

“It’s kind of funny,” he said in the postgame clubhouse, “me signing with the team that beat us in the World Series.” That "us" was Kansas City in 2012. “But that’s how it goes. Every game, I think about getting back to the Series.”

Jackson turned 31 in January. He’s young, but at same time in experience and attention he’s old. Back in 1999, Baseball America named Jackson the best 12-year-old player in the country. Three years later, he was the best 15-year-old. At Ryan High in his hometown of Denton, Texas, he also played basketball and was ranked by Athlon Sports the No. 10 prep point guard in the nation.

Then, after being offered a basketball scholarship to Georgia Tech, he signed with the Yankees. A journey that took many by surprise has not changed his attitude. He’s doing what he wants to do.

“The first game,” he said of his play on Thursday, “is exciting, like the first day of school. It was difficult. My legs got heavy, because I hadn’t played for so long. But it felt good.”

Life, we’re told, is about timing, about being in the right place and then making the best of where you are. Jackson undeniably did that last August when, playing for the Cleveland Indians, he chased Hanley Ramirez's deep shot to the right-center bullpen wall at Fenway Park. He reached up with his gloved left hand for the ball, reached out with his right hand for the barrier and then flipped upside down into the bullpen.

He traveled a reported 97 feet, probably got as much TV time in replays as imaginable and became a part of what Major League Baseball declared “the play of the year.” It was one of those plays that no matter how many times you view it — and Jackson said he has seen it maybe 100 times — seems impossible.

“Most people talk about the catch,” Jackson said, “but my friend noticed I was hanging on to the wall for dear life. I just kind of flipped over and landed on the ground, my arm still on the wall.”

He won’t be able to do that at AT&T Park, where the fences are higher, but what he can do is bring the skills that help a team.

“I’ve learned a lot being with great players,” he said. ”When I’m out there, I want to trust the guy beside me.”

The way teams have put their trust in Austin Jackson.

Of Samardzija, Mays and strawberries in the wintertime

By Art Spander

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Baseball still gets down to one person throwing a ball — pitching — and another trying to hit it. As it has been for 150 years. Before analytics and metrics.

When scouts saw a kid who could do it all and told management, “Sign him.”

A kid like Joe DiMaggio. Or Stan Musial. Or the man who was holding court in the Giants spring clubhouse, Willie Mays.

In an hour or so, Jeff Samardzija would make his first start of the exhibition season, work what he thought was effectively, at least to a point of self-satisfaction, an inning and third, allowing four runs Tuesday in a game that San Francisco would win, 14-12, over the Diamondbacks.

Then Samardzija would head to his locker, at the opposite end of the clubhouse from the table where Mays sits anytime he chooses, and Samardzija would lament the trend to replacing pitchers by the book, not on how they were performing, and the obsession in the sport on items such as launch angle and spin rate.

Whatever angle Mays launched balls at during a Hall of Fame career never will be known. But he hit 660 home runs, and missed two full seasons, 1952 and ’53, when he was in the Army — “I probably would have hit 40 each year,” he said unpretentiously. He also played home games for 23-plus seasons at cold, windy Candlestick Park.    

Oh, was he special. From the start. “We got to take care of this kid,” Garry Schumacher, the publicist of the New York Giants, said in the 1950s. “We got to make sure he gets in no trouble because this is the guy — well, I'm not saying he's gonna win pennants by himself, but he's the guy who'll have us all eating strawberries in the wintertime.”

At this moment, at his table, the top autographed by Mays — “They sell it for charity,” he pointed out — Willie was eating a taco and, between bites, asking for a Coke.

“No Cokes,” he was told. “They want the players to cut down on sugar.” So Mays settled for water.

Willie will be 87 in May. His vision is limited. “I’m not supposed to drive at night,” he said to a journalist who also has eye problems. “But I feel good.”

It has been said one of the joys of baseball is that it enables different generations to talk to each other. A grandfather and his grandson, separated by 50 or so years, may have little in common. Except baseball. The game is timeless.   

Three strikes and Mays was out. Three strikes and Buster Posey’s out. Batters still are thrown out by a step. “Ninety feet between bases is the closest man has come to perfection,” wrote the great journalist Red Smith.

The closest any ballplayer has come to perfection is Mays. We know he could hit. He could run, steal any time wanted, third base as well as second. Defense? The late San Francisco Chronicle baseball writer Bob Stevens said of a Mays triple, “The only man who could have caught it, hit it.”

On Tuesday, writers were hitting it off with Mays when rookie pitcher Tyler Beede, the Giants’ first pick in the 2014 draft, sat down next to Mays. They were separated by some 62 years — Beede is 24 — but instantly they began a conversation.

“Where you from?” Mays asked Beede, a star at Vanderbilt, who is from Chattanooga.

“You play golf? Mays asked. Beede said he did. “Twelve handicap,” he added.

Mays laughed. “Got to watch you 12-handicap guys. Pitchers, they’re always playing golf. They have the time between starts.”

Willie was a golfer until he no longer could see where his shots landed. He started the game at San Francisco’s Lake Merced Golf Club, struggled for a while — “I can’t believe I can’t hit a ball that’s just sitting there, not moving,” he said when learning — but became accomplished.

Then Pablo Sandoval dropped by, almost literally, practically sitting in Mays' lap and wrapping Willie in a bear hug. “I need some money, I’m broke,” said Pablo. The two laughed.

Willie is rich. In memories and friends.

A’s Melvin: ‘We feel like it’s trending back up’

By Art Spander

MESA, Ariz. — The wall where players enter the clubhouse is lined with history, at least with posters of those who made history for the Oakland Athletics — Rickey Henderson, Dennis Eckersley, Catfish, Reggie, Rollie, and with those players who really who needs last names?

Oh, the glory days when the A’s were on top, not just on top of the Giants but all of baseball.

These, however, are the frustrating days, the days when every good player on the A’s — and they’ve had a ton — leaves, when Josh Donaldson, Yoenis Cespedes, Josh Reddick and Sonny Gray go to another team because Oakland cannot afford to keep them.

Bob Melvin has been through this from top to bottom as the A’s manager since June 2011, six and two-thirds seasons heading into 2018. Time flies, until the roster flies apart.

“The first three (seasons) went a lot quicker than the last three; we were, much more successful then,” said Melvin, confirming the obvious. “For us it’s difficult to trend up all the time when we have to get rid of some players.

“So the trend line went down. We feel like it’s trending back up. We like the younger group we have here right now. We’re excited about it. So after three difficult years, I’m looking forward to being with this group for a while — and hopefully it’s longer than one more year.”

Melvin, “Bo Mel” as we came to know him, the Menlo-Atherton High kid, the Cal guy, was sitting Sunday in the dugout at Hohokam Stadium, the Athletics’ spring home, a few minutes after Oakland and Kansas City played to one of those exhibition anomalies, a tie, 4-4 in this case. Hey, the Royals had to motor 45 miles west to Surprise, and the game already was only four minutes short of three hours. So, adios.

Which too often is what the A’s have said, figuratively, of course, to their stars. Now they have another group with potential to make it big, to make the A’s very good. One of those players, 6-foot-7 lefthander, A.J. Puk, pitched the first two innings. Didn’t allow anyone to reach base. Did allow Melvin to dream.

“What we saw last year,” said Melvin of Puk in spring 2017, the pitcher’s second season of pro ball, “today was even a better mix of pitches.”

Puk has added a two-seam fastball. Of the six batters he faced, four grounded out and one struck out. He threw only 20 pitches.

"Great command, great poise, throwing strikes, easy innings,” said Melvin, a former catcher. "I told (pitching coach Scott Emerson), 'Why are you taking him out?' He was only going to pitch two regardless, so off to a really good start.”

Puk is 22, from Iowa (yes, so was Bob Feller, but please, no comparisons) and went to the University of Florida. He’s learning. He’s improving. The A’s very well also might be improving. But then a key player is dispatched. Whoosh, gone.

“That’s one of the chief complaints,” Melvin conceded of the turnover of personnel. “Hopefully that all changes with the new ballpark. I know we’re still counting on that but just haven’t found a site yet.”

This is 50 years for the A’s in Oakland, and for almost the entire half-century, since they moved here from Kansas City before the 1968 season, since they won three World Series in a row in 1972-74, since they had their decent stadium, the Oakland Coliseum, horribly transformed for a football team now preparing to desert, there hung the question whether the team would belong to Oakland.

They were going to move to Portland. To Sacramento. To Las Vegas. To San Jose. They were as restless as a willow in a windstorm, to steal from Oscar Hammerstein.

Tarps covered seats, and in some years, such as 2016 when almost nobody in the infield could play defense properly, fans covered their eyes.

Spring training is for optimists. Every team is undefeated. Bob Melvin and the A’s have gone through good times and bad times. Maybe this time won’t be better, but the suspicion is it won’t be worse.