Category: Uncategorized

By: Joe Lami

OAKLAND, Calif.–Thursday night’s series opener against AL West leading Houston Astros was a roller coaster of a game, as the A’s are taking a page out of the Giants’ torture type of baseball. Going into the eighth inning, they were leading 2-1, but by the end of it the Astros were able to take the 4-2 lead. However, a ninth inning rally and a blown save later Oakland found themselves in extra innings, but it was all for not as Houston earned their 61st victory of the season with 5-4 win.

It looked promising, as the A’s put Aaron Brooks on the mound in just his second career start.  Brooks pitched phenomenally with a final line of seven innings pitched.  He surrendered one run that came in the first inning on four hits, while he struck out seven. A’s manager, Bob Melvin, commented on Brooks’ outstanding performance “He pitched great, that’s all you can ask from him. It’s unfortunate we couldn’t get the win for him tonight”. Brooks added the key tonights performance was getting ahead with first pitch strikes.

The lone run Brooks gave up was scored by Carlos Gomez, who reached first on a gorgeous bunt down the third base line. Jed Lowrie eventually brought him in and earned the RBI on a sacrifice fly.

Stephen Vogt tied the game in the bottom of the 2nd inning, when he hit the first of two A’s home runs out to left center field, just to the right of the 388 marker.  The dinger marked his 15th blast of the year.

The A’s took the lead in the fifth inning, as they took Scott Feldman deep to left center again.  Brett Lawrie earned his tenth of the season on the blast that hit off of the glass of a luxury box in what had to have been one of the longest homers of the year. Melvin added “he crushed it, you know how athletic and strong he is when he’s in the cage, and tonight he showed it off”.

Brooks came out of the game at the beginning of the eighth, and things went downhill fast for the Athletics. Fernando Rodriguez, Fermando Abad, and Evan Scriber shared duties.  Rodriguez gave up a single to Jose Altuve to set up a Carlos Correa home run.  It marks Correa’s 14th shot of the season in just 51 games played, as he is a strong contender for the AL Rookie of the Year.  The two-run homer made it 3-2.  Houston was able to add another after Colby Rasmus singled to left, where a miscommunication between Billy Burns and Coco Crisp led to an error to make it 4-2.

The Athletics looked done, until they were able to string together a ninth inning rally, thanks to a Lowrie error that took away a double play putting runners on first and third with no outs.  Stephen Vogt, the man on third scored easily with an Ike Davis base hit.   

With the A’s down just one with one out and men on first and third, Billy Burns grounded into what looked like another double play to end the game, but was able to beat out the throw at first by a hair.  The play went to video review, where it was conclusive that Burns beat the throw at first, allowing Lawrie to score and tie things at four.

The roller coaster continued in the tenth as Altuve led the inning off with a base hit.  After a steal and a sacrifice, Altuve was on third with one out.  Former Athletic, Lowrie, earned his second RBI of the game in what ended up being the game-winning hit on a double to left. Oakland was unable to make the comeback in the bottom half of the tenth, handing them their 62nd loss of the season.

By Jeremy Harness

Wednesday was not considered a great day for the Americans in the Bank of the West Classic draw. Thursday, on the other hand, turned out just a bit better.

American Varvara Lepchenko fired the loudest shot of the entire tournament thus far in the second round of this tournament, being held at Stanford, as she pulled off the upset over top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki in straight sets, 6-4 and 6-2, on Thursday.

Lepchenko seized the advantage early and held onto it throughout the match by maintaining the edge in first serves, as she converted 26 of 33 (78 percent) overall. She also blasted three of her serves past Wozniacki for aces.

She added to the advantage by breaking Wozniacki’s serve four times and then took advantage of the WTA’s fifth-ranked player’s three double faults in the second set.

This was Lepchenko’s first-ever win over Wozniacki, who had won the previous four head-to-head matches, including last year in Miami that saw Wozniacki prevailing in a 6-0 and 6-1 blowout.

Lepchenko will face Mona Barthel, who herself pulled off an upset in the second round Wednesday night, shocking fellow German Andrea Petkovic in three sets, 5-7, 6-2 and 7-6.

After dropping the first set, Barthel quickly claimed the edge in the second set against the 17th-ranked WTA singles player by winning 75 percent of her first serves and was not broken a single time. Meanwhile, Barthel broke both of Petkovic’s serves in that set.

In the other matches Thursday, Angelique Kerber, the WTA’s 14th-ranked singles player, was a straight-sets winner over Ana Konjuh. The German was dominant in every category, including efficiency (Kerber had only one double fault while Konjuh committed four of them).

Kerber will face Agnieszka Radwanska, who rallied to beat Japan’s Misaki Doi, 1-6, 6-2 and 6-0, on Thursday, while Karolina Pliskova was a winner in straight sets, 7-5 and 6-2, over Kimiko Date-Krumm.

By Jeremy Harness

After the first set, it looked like a carbon copy of Madison Keys’ blowout win Monday night.

However, the match made a 180-degree turn very quickly, and Keys found herself on the wrong end of a beatdown the rest of the way, as Ajla Tomljanovic pulled off the upset of the 20-year-old American, who is ranked 17th by the WTA at press time, by a score of 1-6, 6-4 and 6-1 to move on to the semifinal round of the Bank of the West Classic held at Stanford Wednesday.

In the third and deciding set, the Croatian won 10 of her 13 first serves, and she also broke Keys’ serve three times while not being broken once herself.

The real advantage that Keys had was her serve, as she recorded nine aces to only one for Tomljanovic, but Tomljanovic kept the pressure on Keys in the final two sets and played very solid tennis to gain the upper hand.

Another American did not fare any better. Stanford product Nicole Gibbs saw her run through this tournament come to an end against Elina Svitolina, who took Gibbs down in straight sets, 6-3 and 7-6, to punch her ticket to the semifinals.

Svitolina held the advantage in first serves won, as she won 57 percent of them to Gibbs’ 40 percent. Both players were able to break the other’s serve with a good amount of regularity, but Svitolina held a slight edge in that category as well, as she was able to save half of her break points while Gibbs only saved 36 percent.

However, all was not lost on the American side, and Alison Riske made sure of that. She pulled off the upset of the tournament thus far, as she downed Spaniard Carla Suarez Navarro in straight sets, 6-4 and 6-4.

There were only two aces in the match, and both belonged to Riske, who also held the advantage in first services won, including a 70-percent clip in the second set, and that that proved to be the difference in the match, offsetting the seven double faults she committed.

By Jeremy Kahn

After a heartbreaking loss in the opener of the three-game series against the Atlanta Braves, the San Francisco Giants pulled off a comeback of their own.

Hunter Pence hit a three-run home run in the top of the eighth inning, as the Giants rallied from a 3-2 deficit to defeat the Braves 8-3 at Turner Field.

Jake Peavy pitched six strong innings, allowing just one run and five hits, walking just one and striking out a season-high eight.

Peavy threw a season-high 106 pitches, and since returning to the rotation six starts ago, Peavy has a 2.63 earned run average.

Matt Duffy picked up four hits on the night, including the game-tying double that scored Gregor Blanco, who doubled to leadoff the inning. After a intentional walk to Buster Posey, ape ce launched a three-run home run.

Jeremy Affeldt won for the first time this season, as the Giants are now 12-4 since the All-Star break and are a half-game behind the Chicago Cubs for the second wild card spot in the National League.

By Jeremy Harness

The Bank of the West Classic has some local flavor to it, and now we know who the local product will be going up against.

Nicole Gibbs, who played her collegiate tennis at Stanford, where this tournament is being held, found out who she will be playing tomorrow night. The 22-year-old will face the sixth-seeded player in the tournament, Elina Svitolina, who dropped the first set to fellow Ukranian Kateryna Bondarenko but roared back to take the next two sets to move on to the second round.

The match was pretty much split down the middle, but the main difference was that Svitolina went the entire match without a single double fault while Bondarenko committed six of them. Meanwhile, Svitolina won 52 percent of her second serves while Bondarenko won only 36 percent of them.

In one of the earlier matches of the day, Vitalia Diatchenko won the first set, 6-3, over Ajla Tomljanovic, but she did not get a single game after that, as Tomljanovic cleaned her out in every way imaginable the rest of the way.

For starters, just as Madison Keys did in blasting Aleksandra Krunic Monday night, the Croatian won 19 of her 22 first serves to set the tone and keep the pressure on Diatchenko. She also broke all three of Diatchenko’s three serves in the third and deciding set.

The dominating finish that Tomljanovic showed should serve as good preparation for her second-round match, as her opponent is none other than Keys, who barely broke a sweat in cruising against Krunic.

However, the Americans did take a hit during the doubles portion of this event. The duo of Catherine Bellis and Jacqueline Cako gave it a good run against the second-ranked pair of Spaniards Anabel Medina Garrigues and Arantxa Parra Santonja, but they fell in straight sets, 6-4 and 7-6, despite the fact the they saved 11of their 14 break points.

By Jeremy Harness

STANFORD – The Bank of the West Classic got under way on Monday, minus the main attraction.

Serena Williams, who won this tournament for a third time last year, was forced to take herself out of this year’s event due to a bad left elbow, which she injured while practicing during the Swedish Open.

However, this could prove to be the perfect opportunity for a star in the making such as Madison Keys, who is ranked No. 18 by the WTA at press time. The 20-year-old certainly put the field on notice Monday night by overpowering Aleksandra Krunic in straight sets by a 6-3 and 6-0 count.

Keys was simply too fast and too strong for the Serbian throughout the match, and she appeared to only grow stronger as the match went along. To illustrate her dominance, Keys won 24 of her 26 first serves to go along with six aces to only one for Krunic.

“Once I got ahead, I just tried to keep the pressure on her,” said Keys, who made it to the quarterfinal round at Wimbledon as well as a semifinals at the Australian Open earlier in the season. “My first serve, overall, has been working for me.

“It hasn’t been the most consistent year, but I would say it has been the best year.”

When you also factor in that keys also broke Krunic’s serve four times, you’ve got a match that lasted less than an hour.

Andrea Petkovic, who is directly in front of Keys in the WTA rankings at No. 17, came back to down fellow German Carina Witthoeft in three sets in one of the afternoon matches.

The 27-year-old Petkovic dropped the first set to Witthoeft, 7-5, but she responded in a huge way with a dominant 6-1 second set before closing out the 20-year-old, 6-3, in the final set to move on to the quarterfinal singles round.

“I just played really bad (in the first set),” said Petkovic, who currently does not have a coach but who has reached out to German tennis legends Steffi Graf – to no avail, as Petkovic said that Graf has no desire to travel at all at this point – as well as Boris Becker, to take on a sort of a mentor role in her career. “I was just sort of relying on my (physical) stability, but I never felt like I was on top of my game.”

Petkovic made it all the way to the semifinal round of last year’s tournament before falling to Serena Williams in straight sets. However, she won’t have the chance for redemption this time around due to defending champion Williams dropping out.

To add a little local flavor to the tournament, former Stanford star Nicole Gibbs also moved on to the quarterfinals after beating Frenchwoman Caroline Garcia, 6-4 and 7-5, to win her third match of the season.

To get the upper hand, the 22-year-old Gibbs won 78 percent of her first serves during the match, including winning 82 percent in the second set, which proved to be crucial down the stretch.

By Jeremy Kahn

With a chance to be a hero for a second straight day in his home state, Hunter Pence came up short.

Pence grounded into a double play with the bases loaded to end the game, as the Texas Rangers held on to defeat the San Francisco Giants 2-1 at Global Life Park.

Buster Posey got the Giants within a run in the top of the ninth, as he singled off of Sam Dyson, but then Dyson got Pence to ground into the twin killing to stop the rally and end the game.

Martin Perez was fantastic for the Rangers, as he went 8.1 innings, allowing one run on just two hits. This start for Perez came on the heels of a nightmarish outing on Tuesday night that saw Perez allow eight straight batters to reach in the second inning, as the New York Yankees throttled the Rangers 21-5.

Josh Hamilton provided the only offense the Rangers would need, as he hit a two-run home run off of Mike Leake in the bottom of the sixth inning.

Leake, making his Giants debut, went 6.1 innings, allowing two runs on eight hits, walking two and striking out five.

By Jeremy Kahn

Brandon Belt and Hunter Pence are both from Texas, and the duo disappointed the home fans with their bats.

Belt and Pence each hit solo home runs in the top of the 11th inning, propelling the San Francisco Giants to a 9-7 victory over the Texas Rangers at Global Life Park.

After trailing the Rangers and new starter Cole Hamels by the score of 7-4 with two outs in the top of the eighth, the Giants began a rally of epic proportions. Joe Panik doubled, and ended Hamels night.

Reliever Tanner Scheppers then allowed three straight hits, including a game-tying single to Pence.

Hunter Strickland pitched two innings for the win, and Santiago Casilla got the final three outs for his 27th save.

Buster Posey hit his 15th home run of the season, one of three hits for the 2012 National League Most Valuable Player.

By Jeremy Kahn

In their first appearance in Arlington since winning the 2010 World Series, the San Francisco Giants failed to relieve the same celebration from that November night.

Elvis Andrus and Adrian Beltre each hit home runs in the first two innings, as the Texas Rangers defeated the Giants 6-3 at Global Life Park.

It was a rough night for Madison Bumgarner, as he allowed six runs for the second time this season, and also struck out in seven innings.

Things got testy between the teams at the end of the third inning, as Delino DeShields popped out to end the inning and flipped his bat in the process. Following the flip of the bat, a shouting match between Beltre and Bumgarner began.

Both benches and bullpen cleared, but order was restored and there no were no ejections from either side.

Nick Martinez went 6.1 innings, allowing two runs and struck out four on his way to his sixth win of the season.

Brandon Crawford hit his 16th home run of the season for the Giants in the top of the ninth inning.