There were two positives that came out of Thursday’s season opener: Madison Bumgarner looked rather sharp and gave the Giants every chance to win, and Evan Longoria will not start the season with an extended 0-fer, which was the case in 2018.
Bumgarner surrendered only a pair of run over seven solid innings to go along with only five hits allowed. Meanwhile, Longoria went 2-for-4 at the plate, including a single in his very first at-bat of the season.
The rest of the day was rather forgettable at best, as the San Diego Padres beat the punchless Giants, 2-0, at Petco Park Thursday afternoon.
Wil Myers did all of the damage for the Padres at the plate, driving in both runs to send the Giants reeling right out of the chute. It started in the third inning, when Myers took Bumgarner deep to right-center to give San Diego a 1-0 lead.
Three innings later, he struck again, blooping in a single into shallow left-center to bring Ian Kinsler in and double the lead.
The Giants never posed a serious threat, as they never got any more than one hit in a given inning and did not get a runner safely to second base the entire game. Padres starter Eric Lauer was brilliant on Thursday, going six innings and giving up only four hits, walking only one while striking out three.
They hope to bounce back very quickly in this weekend series against the Padres by getting their bats to wake up. However, if this is any indication of things to come, it will be a very long season for the Giants.
The Giants are used to going into seasons with great expectations. Winning rings will do that for you.
However, this ain’t one of those years.
With new general manager Farhan Zaidi trying to figure out how to get rid of the bad contracts handed out by his immediate predecessor while also pondering how to get this floundering team back on track, the Giants are clearly in a rebuilding mode this season.
To add to the drama was the extremely-unfortunate incident that involved team CEO-president Larry Baer, who earlier this month was caught on video angrily grabbing a cell phone from his wife’s hands and subsequently knocking her to the ground.
The Giants have since suspended Baer without pay until July 1.
What makes this really sad, particularly for Giants fans, is the fact that 2019 will mark manager Bruce Bochy’s last season as a major-league skipper.
Meanwhile, the other teams in the National League West have improved, particularly the San Diego Padres, especially with their offseason acquisition of highly-coveted free-agent infielder Manny Machado, who helped the Dodgers make a run to the World Series a season ago.
San Diego also has a highly-touted rookie in Fernando Tatis, Jr., who officially made the team out of spring training.
The Colorado Rockies made sure to lock up their star player in Nolan Arenado, who just so happens to be a notorious Giant-killer, and he will team up with budding stars Trevor Story and Charlie Blackmon and the rest of a Colorado team that made a serious run at the playoffs in 2018.
Here’s what all of this means: Expect the Giants to take a beating at the hands of their own division – a division that they themselves overcame to win three World Series rings in five seasons not too long ago – in a way that is similar to the beatdown that Muhammad Ali took at the hands of Larry Holmes toward the end of his great boxing career.
Phil Mickelson wanted more than anything on Sunday night to finish the last two holes of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
Fifteen hours later, he was able to claim that crown.
Mickelson and Paul Casey, whom he had tracked down the day before to take a three-shot lead when he simply ran out of daylight, played the final two holes of the tournament Monday morning, with the big left-hander holding off the Englishman to win this event for the fifth time of his career.
“This is a special place here at Pebble Beach,” the 48-year-old Mickelson said. “It’s special to win, and I have so many incredible memories and recollections over the years, and to play some of my best golf on a Sunday and be able to catch a good player in Paul Casey, it means a lot to me.” It was Mickelson’s first win on the PGA Tour in nearly a year, when he beat Justin Thomas in a playoff to take the WGC-Mexico Championship last March, and it was the 44th overall victory of his career.
All was not lost for Casey, however. He and his pro-am partner, Don Colleran (—–), won the team competition, the first time they have won that in their careers.
“It’s been a treat this week,” Casey said. “I got an up-front close look at Phil shooting a great round of golf and winning this golf event.
“I’m happy with the way I played. I’m very happy we won the team competition. It’s been a very good week.”
In a tournament that has featured some delays and a play suspension in the last three days,
The tee times were delayed three hours on Sunday, and when the course finally opened up for the players for the final round, the skies were clear and the course looked as beautiful as ever.
However, that did not change the fact that it was downright cold at Pebble Beach. The morning temperatures hovered around the high 30’s, which is considered to be unusual for this area, even in this time of year.
Paul Casey started the final round with the lead, but Phil Mickelson caught him at the ninth hole at 15-under with a birdie, and then overtook him on the back nine. While Casey could not get anything going and had to settle for pars, Mickelson birdied the 10th, 13th and 14th to take a three-shot lead.
He then parred the 15th and 16th holes, and then at around 5:50pm PST, a discussion was has as to stopping play, as the sun had set five minutes prior.
By all accounts, Mickelson was doing everything in his power to keep going and try to finish the round. However, Casey was much more hesitant and ultimately decided to call it quits until Monday morning. At that point, three horns blasted, signaling the suspension of play.
“Well, I get exactly where Paul’s coming from,” Mickelson said. “It’s dark, and we’re going to have a good chance tomorrow to come out on fresh greens and have them mown. They got pretty rough this afternoon, so I totally get it.
“But I have pretty good vision, I can see fine, and I’m playing well, so I wanted to continue, and that’s all there is to it. In all honesty, it’s probably a good thing because now we’ll play the last couple holes in pure conditions, and it will be helpful for us both.” Mickelson and Casey will resume play at 8:00am PST Monday morning, and admission to the course will be free – with no ticket required – and 17 Mile Drive, which usually requires some sort of a pass, will be open to the public on Monday.
Scott Stallings made a huge charge on Sunday, with a mix of great putting and a brilliant short game, to shoot a six-under round of 66. He was five-under on the front side with no bogeys, including three birdies in a row on holes six through eight.
He dropped a shot at the 12th, but he quickly rebounded with a birdie at the 13th, and then he closed things out with a well-played 18th that resulted in his draining a three-footer for a birdie.
PEBBLE BEACH – Spyglass Hill was supposed to be the course where players look to survive until they got to another course where scoring was more allowable.
Paul Casey defied that logic on a drier third round on Saturday.
A day after play was called due to continuous rain turned the greens into lakes and transformed holes into water buckets, Mother Nature pumped the brakes on the rain – with the exception of a 30-minute interval slightly after noon – and Casey accelerated his play.
Casey, fresh off his 64 at Monterey Peninsula Friday, put himself in the lead by shooting two-under on the front nine at Spyglass Hill and then making another birdie at the par-5 11th to get to 13-under overall and give himself a two-shot lead.
He kept rolling in birdies on the back nine, picking up shots at the 14th as well as the 15th to increase his lead to three. He parred out the rest of the way to finish with a five-under 67.
Phil Mickelson appeared to go backwards, and it looked as if he would fall out of contention. He was up and down on his front nine at Pebble, with three birdies and three bogeys, and with his driving accuracy slipping even more than it did Friday after a perfect driving round Thursday, he dropped another shot at the par-4 10th to fall to nine-under and six shots behind.
However, he got things on track immediately following that, and he recovered from a tee shot into the bunker to make birdie at the 13th before a magnificent second shot nearly found the hole at the par-5 14th. He sank the ensuing three-foot eagle putt, and he ended up closing with a two-under round of 70 and only trails Casey by three shots and is currently in second place.
Lucas Glover, one of the guys in a tie for the lead after Friday and whose big win on the PGA Tour was the 2008 U.S. Open, tried to keep pace with Casey, picking up two shots on his first nine at Monterey Peninsula, thanks to four birdies in a row at holes 14 through 17.
However, he fell back a bit after a pair of bogeys against one birdie on his second nine, and he finished with a one-under 70 and four shots behind Casey.
Jordan Spieth held his ground for the first four holes at Pebble Beach and then picked up a shot after rolling in an eight-footer for birdie at the par-3 fifth. He appeared to have run into trouble after hitting his second shot into the ocean at the next hole and then left himself a 20-footer for par.
However, he knocked in the lengthy putt to keep himself in the mix.
He held up just fine through 12 holes, but that’s when the wheels started to wobble, as he lost control off the tee. He double-bogeyed the 13th, and even though he quickly rebounded with a birdie at the 14th, he bogeyed the par-3 17th and then hooked his tee shot at the par-5 18th into the ocean and ended up with another double bogey to finish with a two-over round of 74.
Saturday morning was not only dry, but there was nothing but blue sky to be seen all around the golf course, and spectators took advantage by getting as many pictures as they could of celebrities such as hockey star Wayne Gretzky, country singer Jake Owen and actor Bill Murray.
However, that lasted only a few hours, as the skies turned gray at around 11:30, and by noon, the rain began to pour onto the course. This time, however, the rain stopped at about 12:30 pm and held off while the sky cleared back up, but the wind intensified as the day progressed.
PEBBLE BEACH – The rainy conditions were all but guaranteed for Friday’s second round, but the morning was relatively dry, and there was even a patch of blue sky to be seen over the grounds of Pebble Beach Golf Links.
Photo credit: Jeremy Harness
But as expected, that all changed as the afternoon rolled in, and it only got worse in the ensuing hours.
The rain began to fall at about 12:30pm PST, and about half of the players were able to finish their rounds by then. One of them was Phil Mickelson, who not only survived Spyglass Hill but also picked up ground, surging to the top of the leaderboard.
His driving accuracy came back down to earth on Friday, and he didn’t hit as many greens as he did in the opening round, but he putted better than was the case at Monterey Peninsula on Thursday and was also able to withstand a three-hole bogey stretch at holes seven through nine. He finished with a four-under round of 68, as he found himself in a five-way tie for the lead at 10-under overall.
“I hate finishing the round off like that and making three bogeys after having a pretty good round going in,” Mickelson said. “It was just a little more difficult conditions. I’m also lucky to get done and get the round over with (before the rain started).” He was one shot behind when he finished his round but vaulted into a tie for the lead when Scott Langley, who had lead for most of the day, bogeyed the 17th hole and then made par at the 18th.
The rain intensified to the point where the actual holes were completely filled with water, and with some players still on the course with more than one hole to play, including Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and Scott Piercy, a decision had to be made.
So the rules officials suspended play at 2:11pm PST. At this point, the players were given the choice of finishing the holes that they are currently on or simply marking their ball and returning the next morning to finish. Cameron Champ and Brice Garnett were on the 18th green, and they decided to finish out, resulting in a cool visual of Garnett’s closing putt splashing into the hole.
In all, there are 44 players yet to finish their second round, and they will go out starting at 7:10am PST Saturday morning. Immediately following the completion of their second rounds, those players will commence third-round action at their scheduled course that day.
“It just started kind of spitting rain on the 14th hole,” Langley said. “I told my partner, Dan Rose, ‘You know, man, we’re pretty lucky it hasn’t done anything yet, so it might as well just come,’ and it did, and in full force.
“I just tried to grind down the stretch and make pars,” he added. “Spyglass always seems to be the course that, I’ll call it the toughest out of the three, so to shoot three-under in these conditions in the end, I feel pretty good about it.” Another guy determined to finish out was Paul Casey, who shot a seven-under round of 64 at Monterey Peninsula and had some obvious momentum going that he did not to be extinguished.
“We were on the last hole, and I heard that horn go (signaling play suspension),” Casey said. “And then there was a second one and then a third one. I had to think for a minute, because (if) you get one long blast, you’re done (for the day). But the three means (that) you can finish the hole, and I’m like, ‘We can finish the hole?’ “I’ve never been so happy. I went from upset to happy in an instant, so it was all good.”
One who was not able to get it all in was Jordan Spieth, who appeared to catch a big break via some friendly assistance on Friday. He had an approach shot go wayward to the right at Spyglass Hill’s par-3 seventh hole, when a fan batted the ball in mid-air and deflected it onto the green.
Spieth went on to make par, and that turned out to be his final hole of the day – he started his round at the 10th – as he had a five-under, bogey-free round going before play was called. He is currently tied for the lead at 10-under.
There is more rain in tomorrow’s forecast, with a 40 percent chance of precipitation throughout the morning, before the heavy stuff arrives in the afternoon, as was the case Friday.
“There’s a chance we may miss some of it,” Mickelson said. “You just don’t know how it’s going to play or what the weather’s going to be, and you end up trying to shoot as low a round as you can because everybody else is facing the same conditions.”
PEBBLE BEACH – After a week filled with rain and cloudy skies, players and spectators were treated to sunshine and a considerably-warmer weather during Thursday’s opening round.
And the players certainly took advantage of that, especially with Mother Nature set to unleash her wrath as early as tomorrow.
As is the custom for this tournament – which utilizes three courses in Pebble Beach, Monterey Peninsula Country Club and Spyglass Hill – the pros took advantage of Monterey Peninsula, considered to be the easiest course of the three to jump to the top of the leaderboard.
Six out of the eight players who found themselves at the top of the leaderboard on Thursday used Monterey Peninsula on Thursday. That included first-day co-leader Brian Gay, who blistered the course with a seven-under 64, which saw him record five birdies in a row at holes five through nine.
“It’s usually the driest of the three (courses), which is nice this week, because everything’s really wet,” Gay said. “I just like the style of it. It’s beautiful out here on the water, and I just always enjoyed it.” Tied with Gay at the top is Scott Langley, who himself got a 64 out of Monterey Peninsula. He didn’t have the best of starts, as he bogeyed his second hole of the day but quickly bounced back with a bordie on the next hole.
He went on to birdie eight more holes, including three in a row at holes 16 through 18, against only one more bogey.
Come tomorrow, both guys will play Spyglass Hill, which is considered to be the toughest of the three, particularly because of the slickness of the greens and the prevalent wind.
Phil Mickelson is another guy who has always enjoyed coming to Pebble, and it certainly showed again on Thursday.
Now he has never been known to be the most accurate driver out there, but you wouldn’t know that by watching him play the opening round of this event, as he hit each of the 14 fairways en route to a six-under 65, as he birdied seven holes against only one bogey.
“So history was made today,” Mickelson said. “To the best of my knowledge, it’s taken me 27 years and a few months to hit all fairways in a single round in a competition. I may have done it before, but I don’t even recall doing it.
“It was a really good solid round, good solid start, and we had beautiful weather, and the golf course here is in spectacular shape.”
The recovery of the day had to go to Brandt Snedeker, who pulled his drive left of the retaining wall at the par-5 18th hole at Pebble Beach, in a pebble-collection area just before reaching the water.
He then got back into the fairway on his second shot before knocking his approach onto the green. He then sank a seven-footer to make an improbable birdie on his way to a three-under 69.
Things weren’t going nearly as well for defending champion Ted Potter, Jr., however, who wasn’t doing much recovering at all. He started Thursday’s round with a triple bogey, and it did not get much better from that point. He went on to suffer two more double bogeys to go along with another bogey on the first nine, with two more doubles and a bogey on the back side for a 10-over score of 82.
NOTES: Due to the inclement weather set to arrive tomorrow, tee times have been moved up an hour early. As a result, the first tee time is scheduled for 7:00 am PST.
The San Francisco 49ers are looking to rebuild. The Los Angeles Rams are just looking to keep building.
The 49ers will look to make a positive imprint going forward into the 2019 season, like they did toward the end of last season. They will go down to Los Angeles to face the playoff-bound Rams on Sunday for their final game of the 2018 year.
One of the differences here is that the anointed quarterback of the future in on the bench while nursing a significant knee injury.
The other difference is that the Rams have something to play for this time around, as opposed to the season finale of 2017, when their playoff spot was set in stone with nowhere to go. With a win Sunday, the Rams can clinch the No. 2 seed in the NFC and a first-round bye.
For that reason, the Rams are all but assured to play most of – if not all – their starters to ensure that all-important No. 2 spot. The New Orleans Saints locked up the No. 1 seed in the conference and home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs with their win over Pittsburgh last Sunday.
The 49ers, on the other hand, currently sit with a 4-11 record and have secured their fourth straight losing season, one that started with a load of promise and optimism but has since been riddled with injuries at every key position.
The good news is that Jimmy Garoppolo is expected to be back in action by the time training camp starts next July, and they have two quarterbacks in Nick Mullens and C.J. Beathard that have playing experience and are expected to have a heated battle to be Garoppolo’s backup.
They have long been out of the playoff picture, but they are hoping to get some carryover effect going for next season by going on a winning streak toward the end of this year.
The big difference here is that Jimmy Garoppolo is not under center for the 49ers at this point of the season, having been lost for the season with an ACL tear. Rather, it is undrafted Nick Mullens, who has opened eyes around the league with his surprising play.
That continued as the team scored an upset win over the Seattle Seahawks last Sunday, the first time since 2013 they have done so. Mullens will have a tougher defense to face this Sunday, as the Khalil Mack-led Chicago Bears will visit Levi’s Stadium.
As for the injury report, the 49ers are getting healthier. Running back Matt Breida has been limited in practice this week with the ankle injury he suffered weeks ago and is expected to play Sunday. Meanwhile, safety Jaquiski Tartt, who is nursing a shoulder injury, was also limited in practice this week but is expected to see the field against Chicago.
Linebacker Malcolm Smith has also been limited due to soreness in his Achilles tendon, while cornerback K’Waun Williams has been limited while nursing a knee ailment.
For the Bears, former 49er Aaron Lynch has been on the injury report with an elbow ailment, which has limited him in this week’s practices. The same goes for safety Eddie Jackson, who has an ankle injury, but is expected to play Sunday.
It has been a long and frustrating year for the 49ers, but they are finding a little bit of success toward the end of the year.
The 49ers will hope to build on their 20-14 upset win over the Denver Broncos last week and will play host to the Seattle Seahawks, a team that they have beaten only once in the past six years.
Cornerback Richard Sherman played in Seattle for the first time in an opposing uniform Dec. 2, and it didn’t go very well at all, as the Seahawks rolled to a 43-16 win. Not only did the 49ers lose the game, but there were verbal jabs exchanged in the following weeks between Sherman and some of his former teammates.
When Sherman said that the Seahawks are a “middle of the road” team at this point, defensive lineman Frank Clark took the opportunity to fire back at him, saying that “he’s not in this locker room anymore, so his opinion really doesn’t matter.”
For his part, Sherman responded by saying, “it didn’t bother me at all.”
In the meantime, the 49ers are dealing with some more injury issues. The team placed receiver Pierre Garcon on season-ending injured reserve with a painful knee injury that he has been dealing with for much of this season.
Fellow receivers Dante Pettis and Marquise Goodwin have been limited in practice this week with assorted injuries, while safety Jaquiski Tartt’s shoulder continues to give him problems, as he has not practiced this week after also missing last Sunday’s win over Denver.
For the Seahawks, Clark has an elbow injury that has kept him out of practice this week, while offensive lineman D.J Fluker also has not been able to practice while dealing with a hamstring issue.
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