Category: San Francisco Giants

White Sox searching for consistency with the Giants on deck Tuesday

Published on by moepeaLeave a comment

By Morris Phillips

The Giants and White Sox have plans to occupy the same baseball diamond at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago on Tuesday night.

And that’s where the comparisons between the two ball clubs end.

While the Giants started the season well and saw things get considerably better from there, the White Sox have been stuck in the mud almost from day one on March 31. The South Siders won their first two games, then lost the next three.  They’ve been stuck exactly at .500 21 times then lost the following game on 14 of those occasions.   Having played 16 different opponents in 70 games thus far, with a postponement thrown in, the White Sox haven’t been able to find any consistency in 2014. 

And when they most recently hit .500 at 33-33, the White Sox lost four in row leaving them searching as the team with the best record in baseball comes to visit.

“It’s not necessarily us not being able to get over the hump,” infielder Gordon Beckham said.  “It’s just the way the season has gone that we just haven’t really broken through when we could have.  There is no real answer as to why we get to .500 and we dip back down.  Hopefully we’ll grind back to .500.”

If gaining traction is rooted in consistency of a team’s schedule, the White Sox haven’t had much.  Tuesday will mark the team’s 17th interleague game thus far and the number of different opponents is just a fact of the new, balanced, interleague-heavy schedule. After Wednesday’s matinee against the Giants, only two of the Sox’s final 90 games will be against National League opponents.  If pitching and defense weren’t such big issues, the break from interleague play might be the thing that propels the White Sox.

Chicago has committed an AL second-worst 53 errors and team ERA ranks 26th of 30 clubs at 4.37.  The lack of pitching and defense has minimized the impact of Cuban slugger Jose Abreu, who has 19 home runs thus far in an eye-opening rookie season.  Also, the Sox haven’t capitalized on bust out campaigns from Alexei Ramirez (.313) and former Giant Conor Gillaspie.

The 26-year old third baseman played 29 games for San Francisco in 2008, 2011 and 2012 without hitting a home run. But Gillaspie’s made himself a fixture in Chicago by hitting 13 homers last season and hitting .329 in 46 games this season.

Maybe the White Sox issues center around the disabled list which has seen Abreu, Gillaspie, Beckham, pitcher Chris Sale and outfielder Adam Eaton miss time with injuries.

The Giants send Matt Cain to the mound in Tuesday’s opener to face Chicago’s John Danks in a 5:10pm start.

Giants turn it around behind Huddy, avoid rare four-game sweep at the hands of the Nationals

Published on by moepeaLeave a comment

By Morris Phillips

You can’t beat the Giants four straight at AT&T Park and don’t expect the Nationals to have much success against Tim Hudson.

The Giants ran past the NL East leaders on Thursday, avoiding a rare four-game sweep with a 7-1 win over the Nationals.  The NL West-leading Giants got some more good news when the Dodgers fell for the second straight day in Cincinnati, allowing San Francisco to increase the biggest divisional-lead in baseball back to 8 ½ games.

How rare are four-game sweeps against the Giants?  No team has pulled the feat since the ballpark in Mission Bay opened in 2000, with the last one coming in September 1996 at Candlestick Park.  The Nationals couldn’t have been a better candidate to pull the feat, having won 10 of 12 to overtake the Braves for first place.  But once Tim Hudson took the mound on Thursday, the Giants almost instantly looked like a much more dynamic team than they had in the previous three days. 

“It starts with your starting pitcher,” manager Bruce Bochy said of Hudson.  “He set a great tone as (Chronicle beat writer) Henry (Schulman) just mentioned, he went out there early, got some quick outs and got us back in the dugout.”

“You try to avoid any kind of extended losing streak whether it’s all to one team, or losing two to one team, and two to another team,” Hudson said succinctly.

Huddy as Hudson is affectionately known was dealing again, improving his record to 7-2 with a microscopic 1.81 ERA.  On Thursday, he allowed six hits and a run over seven innings.  As a member of the Braves since 2005, the 38-year old pitcher has seen the Nationals a lot over the years, but unlike others, he’s taken advantage of the opportunities, beating Washington for a 17th time, this one with the possibility of a season-worst losing streak looming.

In the fifth inning, with the Nats threatening with runners at first and third, Hudson threw rookie pitcher Blake Treinen some nasty breaking pitches that he attempted to bunt.  But Treinen failed to do so three straight times, striking out.  Then Hudson induced the speedy Denard Span to hit into an inning-ending double play. 

The win marked the 212th of Hudson’s career, the most career wins of any active big league pitcher.  It also reinforced the fact that the Giants have been handsomely rewarded for signing the aging pitcher who saw his 2013 season end in a gruesome fashion as he broke his ankle trying to make a putout at first base.  Hudson also missed big chunks of 2009 and 2010 due to Tommy John surgery, but he looks like one of the best pitchers in the game once again in 2014.

“I’ve always admired him from the other side, how well he competes,” Bochy said of Hudson.  “I felt we were getting a front-line pitcher who will give us a chance to win on a consistent basis.  He’s done all we’ve expected and even more.”

The Giants’ offense had floundered in the first three games of the series, but bounced back in the finale.  The Giants scored twice in the second, sixth and eighth, and once in seventh to turn the game into a rout.  The NL West leaders scored five runs in the first three games of the series before busting out with seven in the finale.

Tyler Colvin contributed the critical RBI triple in the second inning to open the scoring.  Gregor Blanco had an RBI single in the sixth, and Hector Sanchez knocked in a pair of runs in the eighth.

The Giants’ homestand continues on Friday night when Tim Lincecum faces the Rockies.  Jorge De La Rosa (6-5, 4.04 ERA) will make the start for Colorado.

Michael Duca on A’s and Giants: A’s Abad non suspension good;Giants Panda out with flu cold

Published on by lleonardbwLeave a comment

by Michael Duca

SAN FRANCISCO–A’s reliever Fernando Abad who was not suspended for throwing inside to Baltimore Orioles hitter Manny Achado last Sunday but was ejected from the ball game unlike Orioles pitcher Wei-Yin Chen who actually hit A’s hitter Josh Donaldson a couple of games earlier. Abad didn’t hit anybody.

Yoenis Cespedes: The glove, there’s a famous cartoon character named Orphan Annie in which the character arrived and it talked about things that go bump in the night and I would have to say that sometimes Cespedes’ glove goes bump in the night however whenever you’ve got litterally a guided missle at the end of your shoulder that you can launch it at will talk about compensation.

That throw by Cespedes to nail down the Angels Howie Kendricks at the plate that’s the best right field to catcher throw I’ve ever seen, it’s purely beautiful as the throw. Former M’s outfielder Ichiro made a spectacular throw from the rightfield corner to throw out former A’s runner Terrence Long at third base years ago. It was amazing in it’s own right it was 320 feet in the air.

Basically Cespedes throw he rainbowed it and part of that play a lot of people don’t give enough credit to is A’s catcher Derek Norris who deaked the runner until the last second and just sort of laid the glove out in front of him and Kendrick tagged himself out and it was just an amazing thing to watch. It should be a play that should make Yasiel Puig of the Dodgers proud but it probably won’t he’s got a huge ego but he’s a kid we were all kids at one time.

San Francisco Giants update: Giants third baseman Pablo Sandoval who missed Wednesday night’s game at AT&T Park against the Washington Nationals due to sickness. There’s a cough going around and that’s a fact because I’ve got it. Sandoval was reportedly coughing in the clubhouse before the game and he had the cough for about a week and he thought this was a good time to take time off.

He was replaced by Joaquin Arias at third just before Wednesday’s game, the virus that Pablo has, coughing is a part of it and you feel pretty run down. Keep in mind it doesn’t beat you up like the winter time flu does but you would notice it out there if your standing out there in the cold.

Giants pitcher Matt Cain who struggled in the first inning giving up three runs to the Nat’s has struggled and wasn’t getting some of the calls from plate umpire Phil Cuzzi but Cain managed to settle down and he got a couple calls that might have changed things a little bit. You have to give credit to the Nationals for being very paitent waiting Cain out which is not a very easy thing to do considering he didn’t allow a base runner in the proceeding innings until the Nats picked up another run in the top of the fifth to increase their lead 4-1.

The job that former Giant Matt Williams is doing for the Nats: The results are good, the reports are there are things that Wiliams has some things he has to learn yet. Most rookie managers have their challenges, he had some challenges with handling the pitchers and it takes awhile to learn that. Williams had six weeks without the Nats star hitter Bryce Harper in the line up.

Michael Duca does commentary each week on the A’s and Giants for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Warriors arena at Mission Bay: Kilroy is here, real estate outfit has big plans at Mission Bay

Published on by lleonardbwLeave a comment

by Jerry Feitelberg

SAN FRANCISCO–Kilroy Reality Corp is proposing to build a 680,000 square foot campus which would turn out to be the largest commerical development in Mission Bay. After the Golden State Warriors purchased land at Mission Bay for their new arena, Saleforce who previously owned the property will now develop a campus south of the financial district for their new office development.

Salesforce originally intended to have Kilroy develop Mission Bay for over 2 million square feet for commerical use. Kilroy has built homes south of Market for Saleforce and Dropbox. The 3.1 acre property was bought for $95 million which also included 300 acres located at the former Union railway yards near AT&T Park, companies from bio tech, mediical, and high tech will mostly be occupying the properties.

The land purchase is almost the half the cost of the Warriors new arena, the cost of the 680,000 foot development which includes the project and property runs at $450 million. The Warriors who plan to build at Mission Bay are looking to spend upwards to $1 billion on the new arena a cost that is more than the original arena that they had their hearts set on at Piers 30-32.

The Warriors said the projected price for building the new arena at Mission Bay would be originally at $500-600 million but that cost has soared into their first billion. Piers 30-32 ran into neighborhood problems as neighbors said they oppose any construction development that would block or change the existing scenary of the bay, the bridge, and east bay views.

The neighbors and former San Francisco politicians former Mayor Art Agnos and former SF Board of Supervisor president Aaron Peskin helped get propositon B passed which limits any new building on the waterfront to 40 feet unless voters approve a project over that size.

The Mission Bay arena will run twice as much higher than the Piers 30-32 proposal and with more freedom to build on that property. With home properties it’s expected that the Warriors will include retail and condos a hotel on Mission Bay as well. How much of a that Kilroy will play into the project is still up for discussion with the Warriors.

Jerry Feitelberg is covering the new arena developments of the Golden State Warriors and the Sacramento Kings for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Giants’ hot run halted by Strasburg, Desmond and the Nats

Published on by moepeaLeave a comment

By Morris Phillips

In fashioning the best 63-game* start to a season in Major League Baseball over the last 10 seasons, a lot of things have gone right for the Giants.

With Ian Desmond and Steven Strasburg on top of their games, none of those wonderful things continued on Monday.

Strasburg shut down the Giants for six innings and Desmond contributed a career-best five RBI in the Nationals 9-2 victory over the Giants.

The loss—only the Giants fourth in the previous 18 games—allowed the Dodgers to cut into the biggest divisional lead in baseball which now stands at 8 ½ games.  Los Angeles won the opener of their four-game series with Reds in Cincinnati, 6-2.

Clutch hitting with base runners on, home runs a plenty and MLB saves leader Sergio Romo (converted 20 of 22) go a long way in telling the story of the 2014 Giants, who have surprised all the experts in compiling the best record in either league.  But on Monday none of those storylines factored in as Strasburg allowed few clutch situations to materialize, the ball stayed in the park and Romo didn’t get the call in a lopsided affair in which the Nats led 4-1 after three and put it away with a five-run seventh.

Ryan Vogelsong was coming off one of the best starts of his career but just didn’t have it on Monday.  Vogey struggled from the start, allowing six hits, two damaging walks and four runs in the first three innings.

The Giants look to rebound on Tuesday behind the red-hot Madison Bumgarner (6-0 over his last seven starts) who will face Doug Fister of the Nationals at 7:15pm.

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary: Attention K-Mart shoppers and bandwagon fans!

Published on by lleonardbwLeave a comment

by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

ANAHEIM–There are bandwagon fans in baseball everywhere. The Bay Area is no exception, however Boston and St Louis, win or lose they show up all the time, they are there for baseball not because of a Bobblehead or Towel Day. The 12,350 fans that show up for Monday night games at the Oakland Coliseum to see the A’S are as good, if not better than the fans at Boston and St Louis, and the same can be said about the 8,560 fans that used to show up until 1999 to watch the Giants play at Candlestick, those were real baseball fans.

Not there for the “selfies”with their I-Pods, or to post a photo with their girlfriends on their Facebook page. I recently spoke in front of class of young men and women, who had an interest in baseball. About 22 of them, I asked them, who many knew how to score a game, I only counted 5 hands that went up. Both of the Bay Area teams are on top of the baseball world. There are still like 100 games left. But these are different times.

A team that finishes 86-76 and advances to the playoffs can be as dangerous as a 110-52 team during the regular season that makes it to the playoffs. It all depends who is hot, who is peaking at the right time. And then, of course, who goes in really healthy into the postseason, since nobody these days can escape injuries. Tommy John is the most popular name in the press box these days, not your favorite pitcher in the Bay Area.

There is a new movie out there, classified as a comedy; “A Million Ways To Die In The West”. The American League West might be the strongest division, with only one team, Houston, under .500, and Houston has shown they are getting better by the day, and can spoil anybody’s party, nobody is dying there. The same cannot be said about the National League West, where either 1-The Giants are the best team of all time, or 2-Nobody else is worth a damn. That division, could, could have 4 teams under .500. There is a lot of dying on that division. You can come to your own conclusion. It is your call, and it will not be challenged or reviewed.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish TV voice for Angels baseball and does News and Commentary each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Giants storm back to victory

Published on by jeremy2878Leave a comment

By Jeremy Harness

After falling behind early, the Giants roared back with an offensive explosion to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat Wednesday night, as they downed the Cincinnati Reds, 3-2, at the Great American Ball Park.

Starter Ryan Vogelsong was cruising along in the third inning, until third baseman Todd Frazier hammered a mistake fastball and sent it just inside the foul pole into the left-field bleachers to give the Reds a 1-0 lead.

The Reds increased their lead immediately following the homer with back-to-back doubles, the scoring hit coming from Jay Bruce, who knocked in Brandon Phillips. That’s when pitching coach Dave Righetti paid Vogelsong a visit to give a pep talk.

The talk must have worked, since the right-hander did not give up a single run after that. He ended up going 6 1/3 innings and gave up only those two runs while striking out nine batters and walked only one.

In the process, he did what Giants starters usually do. He kept his team in the game with a realistic chance to win. In the sixth inning, his bats came through for him and allowed him to pick up the win.

Once again, the Giants’ rally came with two outs, which is really starting to become their calling card this year. Buster Posey and Pablo Sandoval were quickly retired to begin the inning, but Michael Morse, who is having a monster season thus far, launched a solo homer into the left-field seats.

Brandon Hicks followed that with a single, and left fielder Juan Perez quickly capitalized on the opportunity and deposited another deposit into those bleachers in left to give the Giants a 3-2 lead.

The Giants are also building a reputation of having a shutdown bullpen, and that was again on display on Wednesday. After Vogelsong departed in the seventh, Juan Gutierrez, Javier Lopez, Jean Machi and closer Sergio Romo combined to give up a single baserunner, which was a result of a fielding error in the bottom of the eighth.

That baserunner was wiped out two batters later when Machi got Devin Mesoraco to ground into an inning-ending double play.

The two teams will play the rubber game Thursday afternoon.

Warriors at Mission Bay: Prop B height limits wins by a wide margin no new buildings unless voters approve

Published on by lleonardbwLeave a comment

by Jerry Feitelberg

San Francisco Proposition B the measure that restricts any new construction and buildings on San Francisco’s Waterfront won by 18 points 59 percent to 41 percent and will only allow new construction for buildings over 40 feet unless voters approve. If the measure had lost the San Francisco Giants who wanted to build condos and retail on Parking Lot A at AT&T Park would have more than likely been able to proceed with construction with little interference. Ideas for new construction would have been able to move forward without the public’s approval.

The measure was reported losing after polls closed at 7:00PM and there was not much hope for a Prop B defeat after absentee ballots were all counted at the close of the polls. Former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos who campaigned for Prop B and was saying all along that height limits would protect the beauty of the Waterfront Embarcadero and also would give the city those traditional views of the bay, the Mayor Willie Brown Bay Bridge, and the greater East Bay.

The Golden State Warriors who originally wanted to build their dream arena at Piers 30-32 and realized that the Waterfront neighborhood didn’t want the NBA team as a new neighbor with the new arena and a tower of condos, hotels and retail and later settled for some Mission Bay property where they’ll build a new arena. The new arena at Mission Bay was met with virtually no opposition from Agnos or the Sierra Club.

Jerry Feitelberg is covering the arena developments for Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Michael Duca on A’s and Giants;Comparisons of 74 A’s to 02 Moneyball team;If Giants Morse can get healthy he can be a big bopper

Published on by lleonardbwLeave a comment

by Michael Duca

Oakland A’s update: It’s pretty simple and straight forward that 40 years ago when the 1974 Oakland A’s won their third and final straight championship. Author Michael Lewis who wrote Moneyball would have been eight years old and it wouldn’t have been pretty much of a book to read if your comparing the 1974 A’s versus the 2002 team who won 20 straight games that season. You can’t write something until you get the idea and develop the idea.

I’m not sure it would have made a lot of sense for Lewis who spent a full year at the Coliseum and survived sitting with us over on the broadcasters side in the press box for a full season and still managed to write coherently about the subject. You can’t you do that about a team that played 25-27 years earlier. Your going to get unfortunately and it is human nature, the 1974 team is gonna feel like they were slighted. The 74 team held a reunion at the Colisuem last Saturday night.

That 74 team feels slighted because they didn’t get the credit that they desereved when things aren’t done the same way, that they didn’t get the credit that they deserved no matter what because there simply wasn’t the credit to be given then. Baseball was on TV on Saturday hence NBC’s Baseball game of the week. The local broadcast package was not something that the A’s had.

The 74 A’s never had a chance to get the recongnition that the teams do today, people who know baseball know that dynasty who won three straight World Series. The 74 A’s is as good a group of baseball players as anyone alive today has seen, because nobody alive today would remember those great Yankees teams from the 20s, 30s, and 40s. Most of us didn’t see them and can’t because there’s no TV clips from those days.

SF Giants update: Michael Morse the Giants outfielder’s key is to stay healthy, he’s been interupted by nagging irritating injuries for large portions of his career and I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t know the reason for that any better than anyone else or he would have avoided them. It’s not that Morse is a reckless player.

Morse doesn’t do the head first slide that put the Rockies Nolan Arenado on the disabled list for six weeks, he plays the game the right way, he plays the game striaght up but manages to get hurt a lot. If Morse can stay healthy he could end up hitting 25-27 home runs, he can drive in over 100 runs. Morse can be a linchpin for the team.

It will be surprising if Morse can make the All-Star team simply because there’s that silly requirment that every team has to have a player on the team. Your going to wind up usually taking a good outfielder from a bad team and there’s usually three or four bad teams and that pretty much fills up your outfield bench. So guys who don’t get voted in, in the first three outfielders, you usually see a significant drop off in talent once you get past them.

Michael Duca covers the Giants and A’s for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Giants’ favorable schedule before All-Star break begins with the Reds

Published on by moepeaLeave a comment

By Morris Phillips

Yesterday, one run turned into four when St. Louis’ Kolten Wong botched a double play grounder off Gregor Blanco’s bat.  With that bit of assistance, the Giants waltzed to an 8-0 win over the Cardinals to capture three of the four games in the weekend series.

From good fortune and capable offense to shut-down pitching, the Giants are on a roll.  At 37-20, the Giants possess the major’s best record and its’ biggest division lead at 7 ½ games over the Dodgers with their rivals’ game pending on Monday evening. 

So with the Giants on a roll, there couldn’t be a better time for the team to test its luck.  With that in mind, a trip to Cincinnati and a date with staff ace Homer Bailey couldn’t provide a better test.

The Giants have dropped 10 of their last 11 regular season games in the Reds’ Great American Ballpark and last July 2 they were no-hit by Bailey there.  Even for a team currently residing in the clouds without a worry on the horizon, this represents quite a test.

And that’s before the bad taste in the collective mouths of the Reds over the 2012 Divisional Series is factored in.  The Reds returned home in that series up 2-0 only to drop three straight to the Giants on their home turf.  Cincinnati went home, and the Giants went on to win the World Series.

The Reds may be happy to see the Giants, but recent results don’t suggest that the NL Central’s third place team will be ready to pounce.  The Reds have scored the second-fewest runs in all of baseball and just a .500 team (12-12) in their ballpark. Just as importantly, Joey Votto, Cincinnati’s all-everything slugger, is suffering through an off-season, and is currently on the disabled list with a balky quad muscle.

Of course, the Giants are currently without Matt Cain, Michael Morse and just got Buster Posey back.    If momentum decides Tuesday’s matchup as well as the series, then Giants’ should be okay with starter Tim Lincecum, on the hill.  Lincecum pitched no-hit ball into the fifth inning in his last start against the Cubs at AT&T Park.  But Bailey’s a Giant killer, having posted a 2-0 record against San Francisco in six career starts.

Bailey hasn’t been lights out though: his 5.04 ERA would suggest he’s a ways away from repeating his no-hit feat on Tuesday. 

For the Giants, no time is better than the present to increase their NL West lead to the breaking point, only two of San Francisco’s remaining nine opponents—Cardinals and A’s—before the All-Star break currently have winning records.