Author: jeremy2878

Giants-Rox postponed by rain

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Photo credit: @NBCSGiants

By Jeremy Harness

The Giants’ workday was cut short Thursday, when inclement weather washed away any possibility of the Giants and Colorado Rockies playing a baseball game at Coors Field.

The game will be made up as part of a day-night doubleheader on July 15, as the original series opener was originally scheduled with a night game on that day. This series will conclude in Denver Thursday afternoon.

Following the conclusion of the series at hand, the Giants will head home and will welcome the Cincinnati Reds to Oracle Park for a three-game weekend series that begins Friday night. Meanwhile, the Reds will not have to travel very far, as they are currently in the middle of a series across the bay in Oakland against the A’s.

With the baseball game safely out of the way, Bay Area fans got to zero in on more significant games for this time of year. For example, the NHL’s San Jose Sharks were able to advance to the Western Conference Finals by skating past another Colorado team, the Avalanche, by virtue of a 3-2 win at the SAP Center.

Meanwhile, the NBA’s Golden State Warriors are now one game away from reaching the Western Conference Finals for a fifth straight year by beating the Houston Rockets inside of Oracle Arena, which is slightly more lively than Oracle Park these days.

The Giants and Rockies are nowhere near reaching the postseason at this point, however. In fact, they have identical 16-20 records heading into Thursday afternoon’s series finale, which qualifies as a tie for the National League West cellar.

On a positive note, they are only 7 ½ games out of the top spot in the division, with more than four months left in the regular season.

San Francisco Giants day off report: Bottom-feeders face off S.F. opens series in Cincinnati tonight

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mlb.com file photo: Newly promoted San Francisco Giants pitcher Tyler Beede will start for the Giants tonight against the Cincinnati Reds to open a three game series in Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park.

By Jeremy Harness

After getting swept by the New York Yankees, the Giants bounced back extremely well this week. They rallied to take two of the three-game series from the hated Los Angeles Dodgers, a series that was capped by Buster Posey’s walk-off hit in the bottom of the ninth to clinch the series.

Now it’s time to take that momentum to the road, as the Giants will head to Cincinnati for a four-game series with the Reds, a series that starts Friday night at the Great American Ball Park.

The Reds have had an up-and-down year, to say the least. Cincinnati started the year losing the first seven games by getting swept by Milwaukee and Pittsburgh, but followed that by winning the next four games in a row.

That was followed by a four-game losing skid and then a three-winning streak.

Just like the Giants, Cincinnati currently sits in last place in its division, the National League Central, with a 13-18 record, the same mark that the Giants own.

The series opener will see a familiar face in the Bay Area. One-time A’s star Sonny Gray (0-4, 3.64 ERA), who was traded to the Yankees a few years ago and could not regain his form, is now with the Reds and will go on Friday against Giants righty Tyler Beede, who will be making his season debut.

Right-hander Dereck Rodriguez (3-3, 4.35 ERA) will take the ball on Saturday opposite Cincinnati’s Tanner Roark (1-1, 4.08 ERA). Jeff Samardzija (2-1, 2.53 ERA) has experienced a resurgence this season, and he hopes to continue that on Sunday when he faces Cincinnati’s Luis Castillo (3-1, 1.45 ERA), which should be a very tough matchup.

Drew Pomeranz (1-3, 4.08 ERA) will try to get things back on track in the series finale Monday afternoon when he faces Cincinnati starter Anthony DeSclafani (1-1, 3.48 ERA).

Giants gear up for Yankees this weekend

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Photo credit: @SFGiants

By Jeremy Harness

The Giants are riding a bit of a winning streak, and they look to add to the momentum against a New York Yankees team that is struggling to put a lineup together these days.

Left-hander Madison Bumgarner (1-3, 3.66 ERA) will take the hill Friday night at Oracle Park, and he will go up against Yankees lefty James Paxton (2-2, 3.10 ERA) when the two teams kick off a three-game weekend series.

The Giants and Yankees last met at Yankee Stadium in July 2016, when New York took two of the three-game series. New York also holds the all-time regular-season series advantage over the Giants, 5-4, while they have seen each other several times in the postseason, dating back to 1921.

Meanwhile, the Yankees are dealing with all kinds of injuries, and the Giants might be catching them at the right time.

Slugger Giancarlo Stanton has been getting ready to return to the lineup after being down since April 1 with a biceps injury. However, the return has been put on hold for now, as he is now reportedly suffering from a sore left shoulder.

The other big cog in the lineup, Aaron Judge, became sidelined after suffering what has been called a “pretty significant” oblique injury this past weekend. All of this means that neither player will be playing this weekend at Oracle Park for the three-game series.

The Yankees have also been without infielders Aaron Hicks and Troy Tulowitzki as well as right-hander Luis Severino, and they will be out of the lineup until further notice.

Lefty Derek Holland (1-3, 4.33 ERA) will take the ball Saturday afternoon opposite New York righty J.A. Happ (0-2, 5.96 ERA), while Dereck Rodriguez (3-2, 3.54 ERA) goes for the Giants Sunday afternoon against Yankees righty Domingo German (4-1, 1.75 ERA).

Pomeranz, Giants shut down Jays 4-0

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Photo credit: @SFGiants

By Jeremy Harness

With the exception of the bullpen, which has been outstanding all season, the Giants have been a tough team to figure out. The starters have been inconsistent, and the bats have been the same.

However, they seem to have it figured out for the time being, particularly after a 4-0 win over the Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre Wednesday afternoon. After losing two straight series on the road, the Giants swept the two-game series from the Blue Jays and have now won three straight games.

Drew Pomeranz was in complete control of his stuff Wednesday afternoon. He got his first win of the season by giving up only a pair of hits over six innings, walking two and striking out five hitters while throwing only 87 pitches in the process.

Reyes Moronta and Trevor Gott took over for Pomeranz and kept up the stellar bullpen play that has been the staple of the Giants thus far this season. The two hurlers combined to keep Toronto off the scoreboard as well as the bases.

Brandon Belt, the first baseman with the huge hole in his swing, appeared to have that hole covered up on Wednesday, launched a double into the gap in left-center to bring in Steven Duggar in the top of the fourth to open the scoring.

One inning later, Pablo Sandoval launched a solo homer well over the right-field wall against Toronto starter and World Series champion Clay Buchholz. The Giants tacked on a pair of runs in the sixth with RBI doubles by Buster Posey and Evan Longoria.

Kevin Pillar, the former Blue Jay who was greeted with a giant sign that read “Thank You Kevin” as he trotted out to center field for both games, also pitched in a double on Thursday.

Buchholz, meanwhile, was tagged for all four Giants runs on six hits and struck out two batters.

Giants back to the skids, lose 4-2 to the Nats

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Photo credit: @SFGiants

By Jeremy Harness

After a promising start to this road trip, the Giants are back to a way of losing that has gripped them over the past year.

They surprised the Washington Nationals in the series opener on Tuesday, but were bombed out of Nationals Park on Wednesday and came out flat again on Thursday, losing by a count of 4-2 to drop the three-game series.

The Nationals scored the first four runs, the last one coming in the bottom of the fifth, when starter Drew Pomeranz walked in a run, after which he was pulled from the game in favor of reliever Trevor Gott.

Gott, along with Sam Dyson, Travis Bergen and Mark Melancon, combined to shut out Washington the rest of the way, but the damage was already done and the Giants bats could not bring them back.

Catcher Erik Kratz doubled in a run in the eighth, and Evan Longoria singled in a run in the ninth, But it was not nearly enough.

Frustration appeared to have boiled over in the fourth, as Brandon Belt was called out on strikes, on a pitch that looked like it was more than a few inches off the plate. As a result, Belt slammed his helmet down and flipped his bat to the side, because of which he was thrown out by home plate umpire Ryan Additon.

On the bright side, the once-maligned Melancon pitched a perfect ninth on Thursday while striking out two, keeping his ERA at 0.00 with nine innings pitched this year. Sure, it is a small sample size thus far, but it is a far cry from his 2018 campaign.

The Giants open a three-game series in Pittsburgh against the Pirates. Their series opener has been set for Friday at 4:05 pm PT.

Nats’ 4 HR’s sink Giants 9-6

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Photo credit: @SFGiants

By Jeremy Harness

Jeff Samardzija was in complete control of his pitches all night last Thursday, and it resulted in the best outing he has had in quite some time.

By the end of the first inning Wednesday night, it was clear that it was not going to be a repeat of that performance. He surrendered three runs in the opening stanza, coming from a pair of homers that were off of mistake pitches out over the plate, which sparked the San Francisco Giants’ 9-6 loss to the Washington Nationals.

Samardzija only lasted five innings and gave up a total of four runs on five hits, walking two and striking out seven, as his record fell to 1-1.

The Giants made their way back in the game in the fourth inning with a pair of runs, but the Nats distanced themselves in the seventh with a pair of homers, a two-run shot to go along with a three-run dinger that gave them a seven-run lead.

The Giants made yet another valiant effort in the ninth, as Gerardo Parra and Steven Duggar, who went 2-for-5 and has been slowly working his batting average up to his current mark of .247, each hit two-run homers. However, they simple ran out of outs, and the series was squared up at a game apiece.

Nats starter Jeremy Hellickson didn’t last much longer than Samardzija, but he did earn the win by surrendering only a pair of runs on five hits while walking four batters, running his mark to 2-0.

The Giants and Nats wrap up their series with a finale Thursday at 10:05 pm PT.

Samardzija shuts down Rox 1-0

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Photo credit: @sfgiants_fanly

By Jeremy Harness

SAN FRANCISCO – Looks like “Shark” has his bite back.

Giants starter Jeff Samardzija has been off to a fantastic start this season and he only accelerated that Thursday night. A guy who is known for going deep into games and eating up innings did not do that nearly enough in 2018, but he has seemed to reverse that trend this season, although it has only been two starts.

He threw seven shutout innings and gave up three hits in getting his first win of the year, struck out seven batters and walked only one. He allowed only one guy to get as far as second base all night, using up only 90 pitches in the process.

It has been a far cry from a 2018 campaign that saw him struggle with his command as well as dealing with assorted injuries that further damaged his effectiveness. He has shown no remnants of that for the first two weeks of this season, and Colorado found that out the hard way.

“He was on top of his game, which you have to do against that lineup,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “He just did a beautiful job of pitching. It was fun to watch. He’s been throwing the ball well.”

“It was a long road that he had to come back from. He was a warrior through all that, trying to pitch, and we shouldn’t have had him out there a few times that we let him pitch. He was battling a lot of pain, probably more than what he was telling us. But he put in a lot of hard work this winter, and you can see.”

As locked in as Samardzija was, however, Colorado Jon Gray was just as good. The two hurlers traded zeroes for the first six innings, and it appeared that the Giants could not catch a break at the plate despite garnering some early momentum.

Kevin Pillar changed that with one swing of the bat in the seventh inning.

It’s said that the first pitch is the best one a batter will see during the entire at-bat, and Pillar took advantage of that. He led off the seventh by nailing the first pitch he saw from Gray, sending it over the Bank of America sign in center field to give the Giants a 1-0 lead and make Samardzija eligible for the win.

“It’s great to do your job and throw a quality start, but there’s nothing like getting a win,” Bochy said. “I was really happy that he got the win tonight, with the effort he gave us.

“We needed some help (in the outfield),” he said of Pillar. “We got not just an outfielder, but an elite center fielder, a guy with some pop. This park is more of a pitcher’s park, but he’s shown that if you square up on it, it will go out. On a cold night, that’s pretty impressive.”

The Giants had a couple of chances earlier against Gray but could not cash in. Second baseman Joe Panik lined a two-out double over left fielder Raimel Tapia’s head, but the rally was short-lived as Buster Posey – who otherwise had a very nice night at the plate with a single and a pair of walks – whiffed to end the inning.

They really had something going in the fourth, when Brandon Belt led off the inning with a double and Brandon Crawford advanced him over to third with a well-placed grounder to the right side of the infield.

However, Pablo Sandoval’s groundout back to the pitcher put a serious dent in the rally, which was officially put to death when Pillar grounded out to third.

The Giants had an opportunity to expand the lead in the eighth, after getting the first two batters on via the base on balls. With Belt up, a pitch got past Colorado catcher Tony Wolters and momentarily allowed both runners to advance with nobody out.

However, what TV replays clearly showed as a passed ball that bounced off Wolters’ mitt was actually ruled as a foul tip by home plate umpire C.B Bucknor, as he determined that the ball had struck Belt’s bat as he checked his swing. The play was non-reviewable, and both runners were forced to go back to first and second, respectively.

Belt ended up striking out, and the two ensuing batters, Sandoval and Crawford, each grounded out softly to first, one of which would have brought a runner home had the passed ball been correctly called.

Fortunately for the Giants, that did not become a turning point, as Will Smith came in and pitched a perfect ninth, thanks to a sparkling play by Panik to rob Charlie Blackmon of a hit.

The Giants next play the Rockies on Friday night at 7:15 pm.

Giants get ready for home opener vs. Rays

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Photo credit: mybookie.ag

By Jeremy Harness

After opening the season with two series away from home, the Giants will make their home debut Friday afternoon when the Tampa Bay Rays visit Oracle Park.

The Rays enter this weekend series with a 5-2 record, but the Giants may have an answer for that. Dereck Rodriguez, who had a stellar rookie season in 2018, will take the ball Friday afternoon against Rays righty Tyler Glasnow.

Glasnow got his season started in the right direction when he beat the Astros, holding the vaunted Houston lineup to a run on six hits over five innings while earning the victory last Saturday. Rodriguez, meanwhile, got a win of his own against an upgraded San Diego Padres lineup, as he surrendered only a pair of runs on four hits, striking out two batters and walking none in five innings of work.

The Giants hope to pull things together at home after dropping the first two series of the season, taking only one of the four-game series with the Padres while winning one of the three-game series with the defending National League champion Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Rays, meanwhile, have two series wins against worthy opponents. They started the season by taking three of the four-game series with the Astros, who are only one year removed from their World Series title.

Tampa Bay then followed that up by taking three of four from the Colorado Rockies, who made a serious push for the playoffs last season.

The Giants and Rays will play all afternoon games this weekend, and the Giants hope to give their fans something to cheer about, starting Friday afternoon.

Bullpen can’t hold onto lead as Giants fall to Dodgers late 5-3

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Photo credit: @SFGiants

By Jeremy Harness

The San Francisco Giants gave a gallant effort in this three-game series against the defending National League champion Los Angeles Dodgers, but in the end, they came up just a bit short, dropping the series by virtue of a 5-3 loss at the hands of their intra-state rivals at Dodger Stadium Wednesday night.

They surprised LA in the first game but dropped the second game, but they were in position to take the third – and the series – when starter Derek Holland left the game into the hands of a bullpen that has shown to be capable this young season.

The Giants held the lead into the seventh inning with a 3-2 lead when righty reliever Reyes Moronta ran into immediate trouble. He gave up a leadoff double to catcher Austin Barnes but seemed to get things back on track by punching out pinch hitter Alex Verdugo.

After a walk, he got Justin Turner to fly out and was one strike away from getting out of the inning. But that’s when David Freese, whose heroics led the St. Louis Cardinals to the World Series title in 2011, lined one off the wall in right-center to bring in two runs and give the Dodgers a 4-3 advantage.

“Reyes has been so good over the past year and this year, but give them credit,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “He just mis-located a fastball in the end.

“We have a good bullpen, so that’s going to have to be out strength, holding on to those games.”

The Dodgers added another run in the eighth, when Chris Taylor’s double, which landed in the same area as Freese’s did an inning earlier, brought in Cody Bellinger.

The two-run cushion was more than enough for closer Kenley Jansen, who nailed down his third save of the season with a perfect ninth inning, as the Dodgers took the three-game series.

Derek Holland had a solid outing against the Dodgers Wednesday night. The crafty left-hander went five innings and surrendered only a pair of runs on three hits, walking four and striking out seven in taking the tough no-decision.

The Giants will return to Oracle Park to host its home opener against the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday afternoon at 1:35 pm.

Rockets knock Kings out of playoffs with 119-108 win

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Photo credit: @TSN_Sports

By Jeremy Harness

The Sacramento Kings saw their slim playoff hopes officially dashed on Saturday, as they were downed by the Houston Rockets, 119-108, inside of Houston’s Toyota Center.

The team has been feisty all season and held on to their postseason chances as long as they could, even on Saturday. Sacramento entered the fourth quarter with the lead, but they were outscored 28-15 in the final stanza as their fate was sealed.

The Rockets, meanwhile, are still fighting for one of the top spots in the Western Conference postseason picture to get home-court advantage for at least the first round. Houston is currently in the third spot with a 49-28 mark, three games behind Golden State and Denver, who are tied for the top spot in the West.

James Harden recorded a triple-double in spearheading the win, scoring 50 points while making 13 of his 31 shots in the process, to go along with 11 rebounds and 10 assists.

Clint Capela put up 24 points while going 10-of-13 from the field and also pulled down 15 rebounds, while Chris Paul had 22 points and five assists.

The Kings had a couple of guys get a double-double in the loss. Marvin Bagley III had 20 points and 12 rebounds – seven of those coming on the offensive end – while making 10 of his 20 field-goal attempts. Meanwhile, De’Aaron Fox scored 18 points and handed out 10 assists, while making four of his seven 3-point attempts.

Bogdan Bogdanovic just missed a triple-double while coming off the bench, leading the Kings with 24 points while pulling down nine rebounds with eight assists.

The Kings next play the San Antonio Spurs on Sunday at 4:00 pm PT.