Month: June 2015

Giants drop third straight at home when Vogey can’t survive the fifth inning

Published on by moepeaLeave a comment

cole

By Morris Phillips

If nothing else, Ryan Vogelsong is a momentum pitcher.  If he gets ahead of hitters, has some success early, garners some run support, works with the lead, then Vogey does wonders.

Without those factors on his side, an efficient, effective pitcher becomes something much less, and far different from Vogelsong’s just completed month of May, which was as flawless as any month in his 10-year, big league career.

On Monday, the veteran pitcher rode momentum early, then in the fifth inning, adversity struck.

The Giants led 2-1 only to see the Pirates strike for three runs in the fifth, on their way to a series-opening 4-3 win.  With the loss, the Giants have dropped three in a row, all at home, allowing the Dodgers to re-establish a 1 ½ game lead in the NL West.

Vogelsong threw 26 pitches in the fateful fifth inning, and 110 in his six inning stint, both numbers far above what he had at any point in winning his last four starts. Given a pair of defensive gems in the outfield that prevented Pittsburgh from breaking through earlier, Vogey seemed poised for another win, were it not for run of adversity.

“I thought I threw the ball really well, just made too many mistakes in that fifth inning and it ended up costing us the game,” Vogelsong admitted.

Meanwhile, Pittsburgh starter Gerrit Cole settled down in a hurry after allowing an RBI double by Brandon Belt in the first. Cole went on to throw seven innings, keeping the Giants off-balance for almost all of them outside of Belt’s hit to open the scoring. Cole’s working on an All-Star worthy season; the win improved his record to 8-2 with a 1.90 ERA.

“We’re watching him mature in front of our eyes as far as kind of navigating himself through lineups one, two, three times,” Neil Walker said of his teammate, Cole. “The guy’s first and foremost is one of the most competitive players that I’ve been around. And to watch him get out of big spots is not really uncommon.”

In the sixth, the Giants loaded the bases with no outs only to see Cole strike out Brandon Belt, then induce Brandon Crawford to hit into a double play.

Tuesday, the Giants have Chris Heston on the mound in a matchup with veteran pitch A.J. Burnett for Pittsburgh at 7:15pm.

NOTES: Former Giant Chris Stewart is finding his niche in Pittsburgh as a part-time catcher with the ability to provide an offensive boost.  After never hitting better than .241 in a season, Stewart hit .294 for the Pirates last season in 49 game appearances, and currently is at .296 through 18 games this season.  On Monday, Stewart came up with a career-best three doubles.

A’s hit the road to Play Detroit and Boston, Sneak Preview.

Published on by rxsluggerLeave a comment

by Jerry Feitelberg

The Oakland A’s have an off-day on Monday as they are travelling to the Motor City to face the Detroit Tigers for three games and then move on to Boston for a weekend series with the Red Sox. The Tigers were here last week and took two out of three from the A’s. The Tigers scored just four runs in the two wins over Oakland and, with a little luck and better fielding, the A’s could have won all three. The two losses were by one run as the Tigers won 1-0 and 3-2 after losing the opener to the A’s 4-0.

The Tigers are returning home after being swept four straight by the Los Angeles Angels  in Anaheim the past weekend and they have fallen to third place in the AL Central. The Tigers are 3-7 in their last 10 games and are 28-24 for the season. The Tigers are led by their big first baseman, the All-Everything Miguel Cabrera. Tiger designated hitter Victor Martinez is on the DL with a sore knee and is not expected to play in the series. Cabrera and Martinez have combined to be a devastating force in the Tiger lineup but with Martinez out, the Tiger offense is not as potent as it has been in the past.

The Tigers will have Alfredo Simon(5-2, 2.67 ERA) on the mound and the A’s will counter with Kendall Graveman. Graveman won his second game of the year when the A’s were in Tampa and went 5 2/3rds inning against the Yankees Thursday night. Graveman left the game trailing 3-0 but the A’s rallied to beat New York and it was a no decision for Graveman. Wednesday’s game will feature Detroit’s Anibal Sanchez (3-6, 6.75 ERA) and the A’s will have their ace, Sonny Gray (6-2, 1.82 ERA) handling the pitching chores. The final game of the series will have Shane Greene (4-4, 5.19) going against Jesse Hahn (2-5,3.77). Hahn pitched a complete game against the Tigers on May 25th beating them 4-0. Greene took the loss.

The Tigers will be looking to regroup and get on the winning track while the A’s have shown improvement as they have won six out of the last ten games played. The A’s took three out of four from the Yankees and played very well. The A’s showed improvement in several areas. They stopped making errors. They still lead the Majors with 51 so far but they hired former Ranger manager Ron Washington to work with the infielders and, hopefully, the fielding will continue to improve. The bullpen showed signs of improvement, too. The A’s were hoping that Sean Doolittle would come back and resume his closer role once he increased the velocity on his pitches. Unfortunately, Doolittle made just one appearance. Doolittle pitched one inning  and only one of pitches reached the 90 miles per hour mark. Dooliotte’s best pitch is a 93 or 94 mile per hour special. Doolittle, however, experienced severe pain in the shoulder and it was back to the DL. No one knows how long he will be sidelined. Tyler Clippard has stepped in as closer and has seven saves so far for Oakland. Evan Scribner has done a good job, too. If the A’s are going to get better, they will need Abad, Dan Otero, Arnold Leon, Fernando Rodriguez, and Angel Castro to be able to come in and do the job.

The other area of improvement has been the return of timely, or if you will clutch, hitting. The A’s went through a stretch where they went 0-for 21 with runners in scoring position. They did better in that department over the weekend against New York. The A’s kick-starter, Coco Crisp, has been on the DL for almost the whole season. The A’s tried Craig Gentry and Sam Fuld, but neither player has done  much hitting for the club. One bright spot has been the speedster, Billy Burns. Burns had had four multi-hit games and has sparked the A’s offense. Burns is hitting .327 and in Sunday’s game against New York, stole two bases and scored on Stephen Vogt’s home run.Josh Reddick is hitting.302 with 7 homers and 31 RBI while catcher Stephen Vogt’s average is .322 with 11 Home runs and 38 RBIs. Another key factor for the A’s has been the return of Ben Zobrist. Zobrist can play multiple positions and that gives Bob Melvin a lot of flexibility when he making out the lineup cards.

After the Detroit series, the A’ play the Red Sox in Boston. The Sox won two out of the three games when they were here in Oakland. The Red Sox’ offense has not been there for them this year. Their big star, David Ortiz, is not having a good year. Hanley Ramirez was hot for a while in April, but he was injured and has not regained his hitting stroke and is a defensive liability in left field. Pablo Sandoval is hitting .249 and Mike Napoli is at .208. Mookie Betts and Rusny Castillo are still question marks in the outfield. Boston’s starting pitching has been mediocre, to say the least. The starting rotation of Buchholz, Miley, Porcello and Kelley will not strike fear into any opposing team. The A’s have a chance to sneak up on Detroit and Boston before they return home to face the Texas Rangers in Oakland and then fly to Anaheim to play the Angels before heading to San Diego for two with the Padres and return home for two more with San Diego and face the Angels again for three.

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary: It’s not L.A. or N.Y. but with Curry & LeBron it’s still TV marketing genius

Published on by lleonardbwLeave a comment

by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

OAKLAND–Before I covered any other team in the Bay Area I had the chance to cover the San Francisco Warriors at the Cow Palace in the late 60s before they moved to Oakland in 1971. The Cow Palace was the first place I covered basketball and the Warriors always had great fans. When I talk about the best fans I mean the fans who supported this team whether they were in first or last place.

I covered the Giants for many years in the 80s and nobody cared about the Giants and the A’s struggled through the late 70s and early 80s before they went to the World Series in 1988. The Warriors have always had support and it is about time they made it to the finals and a lot of people have passed away waiting for the Warriors to win another title.

It was the 1974-75 Rick Barry-Al Attles days when they last won a championship title. It’s a beautiful thing that this finals is going to happen starting Thursday night in Oakland and I wish nothing but the best for Golden State. The Cleveland Cavaliers are a very good team also and they have one of the best players in the world in LeBron James for Cleveland and Stephen Curry for Golden State these two are money for the network.

The networks that might have hoped that the Clippers or a larger east conference team with a larger TV market would have made it. They may not get totally shutout as Curry has been one the faces of the playoffs and of course with LeBron James. LeBron is already a megastar and for TV it’s great to have LeBron and now you have Curry.

We know that the Bay Area is a great place but in a place like Kentucky they could care less about a guy like Curry but the network audience will be tuning in and they will be out to see why the Curry is the Most Valuable Player on the other side your going to see the other superstar like LeBron. This is why TV likes it because they do have established superstars and LeBron is one player who needs no introduction.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the TV Spanish voice for the Angels, the Radio Spanish voice for the A’s, and does News and Commentary each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com