Category: Uncategorized

By Jeremy Harness

Look at it this way: At least the Giants have a chance to clinch a playoff spot at home.

That’s because you can forget about the Giants somehow coming back to win the National League West over the highly-paid, dysfunctional Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers ran away from the Giants on Wednesday, using a big sixth and eighth inning to lock up the division crown, 9-1, at Dodger Stadium.

There was one ironic twist to Wednesday’s game. Former Giants closer Brian Wilson, who put the finishing touches on the 2010 World Series, was on the mound for the final out for the Dodgers to close out the division race.

Tim Hudson was really up against it, as he faced National League MVP candidate Clayton Kershaw. Even though Hudson hung tough for five innings and even held a 1-0 lead into the fifth inning, but Kershaw did not give up a single run the rest of the way while the Dodgers blew the game open.

The Dodgers tied the game at 1-1 after Carl Crawford was hit by a pitch, and then Kershaw hit one against the infield – and outfield – shift that ended up going all the way to the wall and scored Crawford.

In the sixth, Yasiel Puig hit an opposite-field solo homer, and that they added three more runs in that inning to pretty much seal the deal, even though the Dodgers added four more runs in the eighth, thanks to the Giants’ relievers not being able to locate home plate at all.

“He threw great,” Bochy said of Hudson. “He kept us there, gave us a chance. He did a great job.

“You’ve got to play perfect ball to beat (Kershaw),” he continued. “He’s so tough. They played great. It’s a great year for them.”

This comes at a time when the Giants may not be entirely focused on baseball. On Monday, as the Giants and Dodgers were getting ready to start this three-game series, it was reported by CSN Bay Area beat writer Andrew Baggarly that reliever Sergio Romo and coach Shawon Dunston got into a heated argument, which caused manager Bruce Bochy to intervene.

From there, it was reported the Giants, as a team, decided that they were going to boycott Baggarly. In fact, as Bochy was getting ready to address the media during his pre-game interview session Tuesday, outfielder Angel Pagan swooped in and cut the session short as Baggarly showed up.

Pagan, meanwhile, has the time to be concerned with what is reported about the team, since he has since been shut down for the rest of the season with a back injury that never really went away during the course of the year.

The Giants better turn it around quickly. Their magic number is only one in order to clinch a playoff spot, and they have the San Diego Padres coming into AT&T Park for a three-game series that wraps up the regular season. However, this is the same Padres team that swept the Giants right out of Petco Park last weekend.

Sep 22 at 11:10 AM

By George Devine, Sr.

After a heartbreaking last-minute loss at Arizona, Cal (2-1) returns to Strawberry Canyon to face the Buffaloes of Colorado (2-2) on Saturday, September 27 at 1 p .m. PDT.

In this space we had predicted that Cal would be up against a terrific offensive combination in the Wildcats’ WR Cayleb Jones — who caught 3 touchdown passes — and QB Anu Solomon. That was true enough. Also true was the fact that the Bears’ offensive line needed to give Jared Goff more time to find and hit his targets, and that happened to an impressive degree. A surprise, in the eyes of some, was the doggedness of the Cal defense, which held the 14-point favorites to a 49-45 win. But perhaps the key question which Sonny Dykes’ charges must deal with now is endurance. That will be the key element in the test against Colorado.

Last Saturday, the Buffs won over Hawaii, 21-12, as junior Nelson Spruce led the charge by receiving 13 passes to set a school record. He will be the chief target of the Cal secondary, in addition to Shay Fields and fullback George Frazier. Meanwhile, the defensive line will need to shut down the air attack of Sefo Liufau.

Remaining games in the season are:

Saturday, October 4: @ Washington State, 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, October 11: Washington, TBA

Saturday, October 18: UCLA, TBA

Friday, October 24: Oregon, at Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, 7:00 p.m.

Saturday, November 1: @ Oregon State, TBA

Thursday, November 13: @ USC, 6:00 p.m.

Saturday, November 22: Stanford, TBA

Saturday, November 29: Brigham Young, TBA

By: Phillip Torres

Barry Bonds, the All-Time homerun king and former San Francisco Giants left fielder still has hope to be unducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. The slugger is also looking to clear his name of the felony conviction.

Bonds is perhaps the most criticized player from the steroid era. The homerun king is trying to overturn his obstruction of justice conviction from 2011. Bonds is trying to clear his slate as he attempts to get into the homerun king.

On Thursday, a federal appeals court will reconsider Bonds bid for the obstruction case. Bonds’ testimony was more than a decade ago to a federal grand jury probing the notorious BALCO steriods scandle.

Thursday’s hearing is the latest page in the legal situation that involves the BALCO case. This case is going down as one of the biggest scandles in sports history.

Bonds was indicted on charges of lying to a grand jury in December of 2003. The accusations are that Bonds lied about using steroids while was chasing the homerun record.

By Jeremy Kahn

With a chance to clinch a postseason berth for the third time in the last five years, the San Francisco Giants were unable accomplish it.

Justin Turner hit two home runs and Matt Kemp added a solo home run, as the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Giants 4-2 at Dodger Stadium.

With the win, the Dodgers lowered their magic number down to clinch the National League Western Division down to one.

Turner hit a leadoff home run off of Madison Bumgarner in the bottom of the first inning, and then there were fireworks between these longtime rivals.

Following the Turner home run, Bumgarner hit Yaisel Puig on the left foot and with that, the benches cleared; however no punches were thrown.

Zack Greinke improved to 5-0 against the Giants this season, as he gave up just two runs on six hits, walking zero and striking out five, as he improves to 16-8 on the season.

The lone runs that Greinke allowed came off the bat of Bumgarner, who his fourth home run of the season.

Bumgarner went 7.1 innings, allowing four runs on six hits, not a walking a batter and striking out five.

Kemp hit his 24th home run of the season in the bottom of the first inning, as the Dodgers lengthened their up to 3-0 at the end of the first.

Turner hit his second home run of the night in the bottom of the eighth inning to end the scoring for the Dodgers.

Angel Pagan will miss the remainder of the season due to a bulging disk in his back that he operated on Thursday in Los Angeles.

By: Phillip Torres

SANTA CLARA-The San Francisco 49ers (1-2) have lost two straight games for only the second time under the tenure of head coach Jim Harbaugh. Two tough losses have the 49ers in third place in the NFC West, when they could easily be 3-0 atop the toughest division in all of football.

The Philadelphia Eagles (3-0) are coming off of three great victories as they sit atop the NFC East. The high powered Eagles are soaring under head coach Chip Kelly. Quarterback Nick Foles is playing extremely well and the one-two punch of Lesean McCoy and Darren Sproles are a tough combination to stop.

The 49ers must find a way to score points in the second half of football games if they want to make it back to the postseason and ultimately the Super Bowl. San Francisco has been a first half football team in the first three games of the season and they have not been able to close out two of those games. The 49ers have lead in all three games. They have scored just three second half points all season long.

Colin Kaepernick and the 49ers have been outstanding in the first half as they are the only team in the NFL that has scored a touchdown on all three of their opening possession. San Francisco has not trailed in the first half all season long, but they seem to fall off after halftime.

The main concern for the 49ers has to be the second half play of Colin Kaepernick. Normally a standout player that comes through in the clutch, Kaepernick has played terribly in the second half of football games this season. Another concern is the secondary. Without Tramaine Brock for a second straught game, the 49ers secondary was exposed once again.

Rookie first round pick Jimmie Ward has been picked on this season giving up four touchdown catches in the past two games alone. He has to step up his play if San Francisco will have any hope in bouncing back in the NFC West.

Other than the personal concerns, the penalties is what is really hurting the Red and Gold. San Francisco committed over 100 yards of penalties in back to back games. It is easy to see why both of those games have resulted in losses.

San Francisco will look to clean up their play as they will host the Eagles at home in Levi’s Stadium in Week four of the NFL season.

After a heartbreaking last-minute loss at Arizona, Cal (2-1) returns to Strawberry Canyon to face the Buffaloes of Colorado (2-2) on Saturday, September 27 at 1 p .m. PDT.

In this space we had predicted that Cal would be up against a terrific offensive combination in the Wildcats’ WR Cayleb Jones — who caught 3 touchdown passes — and QB Anu Solomon. That was true enough. Also true was the fact that the Bears’ offensive line needed to give Jared Goff more time to find and hit his targets, and that happened to an impressive degree. A surprise, in the eyes of some, was the doggedness of the Cal defense, which held the 14-point favorites to a 49-45 win. But perhaps the key question which Sonny Dykes’ charges must deal with now is endurance. That will be the key element in the test against Colorado.

Last Saturday, the Buffs won over Hawaii, 21-12, as junior Nelson Spruce led the charge by receiving 13 passes to set a school record. He will be the chief target of the Cal secondary, in addition to Shay Fields and fullback George Frazier. Meanwhile, the defensive line will need to shut down the air attack of Sefo Liufau.

Remaining games in the season are:

Saturday, October 4: @ Washington State, 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, October 11: Washington, TBA

Saturday, October 18: UCLA, TBA

Friday, October 24: Oregon, at Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, 7:00 p.m.

Saturday, November 1: @ Oregon State, TBA

Thursday, November 13: @ USC, 6:00 p.m.

Saturday, November 22: Stanford, TBA

Saturday, November 29: Brigham Young, TBA

By Jeremy Kahn

With a chance to send the game into overtime, the Oakland Raiders bit themselves in the rear with a penalty and then a huge turnover.

Vince Wilfork intercepted a Derek Carr pass off a deflection by Logan Carr, then loosened by Rob Ninkovich and pulled out of the hands of wide receiver Denarius Moore into Wilfork’s, hands, as the New England Patriots held on to defeat the Raiders 16-9 at Gillette Stadium.

Just prior to the interception, the Raiders scored to narrow the lead down to one with the pending extra point to tie up the game on a six-yard run by Darren McFadden; however the Raiders were flagged for am offensive holding call against guard Gabe Jackson.

Stephen Gostkowski kicked three field goals, while Tom Brady threw a touchdown pass to Rob Gronkowski and the Patriots won their home opener for the 12th tine in the last 13 seasons.

With the loss, the Raiders extended their losing streak in the eastern time zone up to 15 games, and last won against the Patriots in 1994, their last season in Los Angeles.

Brady, who went to Serra High in San Mateo went 24-for-37 for 234 yards, as he won his 150th career game, becoming only the third quarterback in NFL history to win at least 150 games in a career joining Brett Favre and Peyton Manning.

Carr went 21-for-34 for 174 yards, and with Maurice Jones-Drew sat for the second consecutive game with a right hand injury.

Without Jones-Drew in the lineup, Darren McFadden carried the ball 18 times for 59 yards against a tough Patriots defense.

By DANIEL DULLUM
Sports Radio Service
Sunday, September 21, 2014

GLENDALE, Arizona – If the Arizona Cardinals are missing injured quarterback Carson Palmer, it isn’t showing, at least over their last two games.

And for the San Francisco 493ers, it was a second-half nightmare revisited.

Backup quarterback Drew Stanton engineered a pair of third-quarter scoring drives for Arizona, the defense came up with a key blocked field goal attempt, and the Cardinals hung on for a 20-14 NFC West victory over San Francisco Sunday before a sellout crowd of 61,572 at University of Phoenix Stadium.

“Phenomenal,” was Palmer’s appraisal of Stanton’s performance – completing 18 of 33 passes for 244 yards, two TDs and no interceptions.

“Talk about resilient, he wasn’t getting any calls,” Palmer, out with a shoulder injury, said of Stanton. “He was getting lit up, and he just kept bouncing back, and just continued to play great football.”

John Brown, a rookie wide receiver from Pittsburg State, was on the receiving end of both of Stanton’s touchdown passes.

“Coming out the whole practice week, the game plan was around me to try to get the ball in my hands more, because a lot of people are looking at Larry (Fitzgerald) and Michael (Floyd),” Brown said. “It just opened up big time, so I was just prepared for it.”

It marked the second week in a row that the 49ers (1-2) lost a game due to a second-half collapse. Last week, it happened against Chicago and remains a sore point with Coach Jim Harbaugh – along with 52 second-half points given up in three games.

“No, I don’t understand,” Harbaugh said when asked why the Niners are being overtaken in the second half after taking a lead. “We’ve just got to play better. We’re not playing good enough right now.”

Asked if the 49ers experienced a falloff of attention or skill in the second half, Harbaugh responded, “I can’t put my finger on the things you just said.”

49ers linebacker Dan Skuta said, “We have to come out at halftime with our mind right and stay focused, and not let penalties bother us. We have to stay together.”

San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick didn’t have any solutions either, saying, “I really can’t say one thing. We just haven’t executed the way we should. … We have to score more.”

After San Francisco (1-2) built a 14-6 halftime lead, the undefeated Cardinals (3-0) went to work offensively, opening the second half with two scoring passes from Stanton to Brown to take a 20-14 lead.

First, the Cardinals closed their deficit to 14-13 at 9:25 of the third quarter when Stanton found Brown open toward the back of the end zone on a 24-yard pass. Later, with 4:39 left in the third, Stanton located Brown again, wide open on a similar post pattern from 21 yards out.

“(San Francisco) just forgot me on one play because we had a route coming in, and the cornerback jumped it, the safety flew all the way and I was just open down the middle,” Brown said.

Stanton said Brown is “so smooth, in and out of stuff. We ran a pump there and then the safety went flat-footed for just one second and we got him over the top.

“On the first touchdown, you have to respect Dre (Ellington) coming out of the backfield, and we just had the angle route where the corner sat and gave his eyes inside for one second and I had the safety over here,’ Stanton continued. “We had a quick motion and (Brown) just ‘whoosh’ (with a hand gesture). If you blink, he might be on the other side of you and it’s over.”

San Francisco was working on a 58-yard drive with 13:31 left in the fourth quarter, when Arizona defensive tackle Tommy Kelly blocked Phil Dawson’s 45-yard field goal attempt.

Asked if he saw the rush coming, Dawson explained, “I’m looking down. I don’t know what happened up front. Until I get a chance to look at the film, I would be guessing. Everything felt good in terms of operations.

“You expect to make every kick,” Dawson continued. “When you hear the dreaded double-thud, it seldom is a good thing.”

Kelly, pointing to the inside of his forearm, said, “I have a nice little red mark right there. It feels good, thought. It feels real good.

“Me, Big Dan (Williams), and Calais (Campbell) – I don’t think too many guards and tackles are going to be able to keep us from getting any penetration, so we just got low and when I saw it in the air, I just put my hand up and got that thing.”

Arizona’s ensuing drive included the first two completions of the day to Larry Fitzgerald. But on a slant pattern near the San Francisco 5-yard line, Perrish Cox recovered a Fitzgerald fumble – caused by strong safety Antoine Bethea, snuffing out the Cardinals scoring threat at 6:54 of the fourth quarter.

But the 49ers didn’t fare much better in that same end of the field. Arizona’s Tony Jefferson sacked Kaepernick on a safety blitz, and after a 49ers time out prior to a 3rd-and-20 from their own 10, an incomplete pass forced San Francisco to punt.

“It was big,” Jefferson said of the sack. “We needed to pressure Kaepernick and we did. That sack was huge for us.”

Scoring in the game began and ended with Cardinals rookie kicker Chandler Catanzaro, who booted a 35-yard field goal with :29 remaining in the game, and put Arizona on the board with a 51-yard field goal with 12:23 left in the first quarter.

The 49ers took their first lead of the afternoon on a 2-yard touchdown pass from Kaepernick to Michael Crabtree at 6:45 of the first quarter. Arizona responded with a 32-yard field goal by Catanzaro at13:42 of the second quarter.

Carlos Hyde’s 6-yard run inside the left pylon gave the 49ers capped an 80-yard drive with 8:35 to play in the first half, giving San Francisco a 14-6 lead.

Then came the dreaded second half.

“Look what they did,” 49ers running back Frank Gore said. “What we did on the field is the defensive looks they gave us. You can answer that.”

Crabtree caught 10 passes for 80 yards, Stevie Johnson caught nine passes for 103 yards, and Anquan Boldin caught six passes for 36 yards. Kaepernick was the 49ers leading rusher with 54 yards on 13 carries, while Ellington led the Cardinals with 62 yards on 18 attempts.

49ER NUGGETS: San Francisco pregame scratches included WR Quinton Patton, CB Tramiane Brock, C Marcus Martin, T Anthony Davis, TE Vernon Davis, TE Vance McDonald and DT Tank Carradine. … Prior to the game, the 49ers promoted TE Asante Cleveland from the practice squad and released QB Josh Johnson. … Cardinals CB Antonio Cromartie left the game early in the third quarter with a left knee injury and did not return. … Cardinals RB Jonathan Dwyer, recently implicated on child abuse allegations, was placed on the reserve/non-football illness list and is out for the season. … The 49ers hold a 28-18-0 edge over the Cardinals since the two teams first met in 1951. … San Francisco hosts Philadelphia next week at Levi’s Stadium. Kickoff is scheduled for 1:25 p.m. PDT.

By: Joe Lami

The Giants were hoping to turn things around on Sunday afternoon after dropping two straight to the San Diego Padres on Friday and Saturday. However, their hopes of sending Ryan Vogelsong on the mound fell short, as the Giants feel to San Diego 8-2.

The game was scoreless until the fifth inning, when the Padres were able to get a run across, thanks to an Alexi Amarista sacrifice fly to center. San Diego would then explode in the sixth and seventh innings bringing home four and three runs home respectively.

The Giants only two runs came on a homerun in the top half of the seventh inning, as Chris Dominguez hit his first career Major League homerun, bringing home Brandon Crawford on the swing.

Ryan Vogelsong gets slammed with the loss, as he gave up four runs, two on them earned, on fours hits while striking out five in the five innings in which he pitched.

Ian Kennedy picks up his 12^th win of the season and ups his record to 12-13, as he pitched 6.2 innings. The Dominguez homerun, was that of only five hits he surrendered to the Giants. Kennedy also struck out five in the win.

The sweep comes at the worst time of the season, as only week remains on the season.

With the Dodgers taking care of the Cubs 8-5 on Sunday, San Francisco now sits five games back of first place in the NL West. The loss also ties San Francisco and Pittsburg for the first Wild Card position in the National League. San Francisco hopes to rebound, as they travel to Dodger Stadium tomorrow to try to regain ground on the NL West, if not the Dodgers can clinch the division against their rival.