Peavy: No reason to be embarrassed or disgusted

By Art Spander

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The question didn’t seem to bother Jake Peavy as much as it surprised him. The Giants pitcher had given up six runs and nine hits in under two innings, in his first start of spring training. The Milwaukee Brewers had gone whap, whap and, with Chris Carter’s homer, whump.

And so someone (blush!) had the temerity to ask Peavy whether he was embarrassed or disgusted. Peavey almost couldn’t believe what he had heard.

“I’m not embarrassed or disgusted,” he said. “There’s no reason to be. I gave up six runs in a spring training game. There were some balls hit hard, and a ball that was almost an out. The results weren’t good, but that’s part of spring training.”

A glorious time of year, spring training, part myth, part standing in line at Don & Charlie’s restaurant. The next year we’ve waited for has arrived, if only as Baseball Light, when the games don’t count and even after his team gets whipped 8-7, as happened to the Giants on Thursday, the manager can offer a few virtual shrugs and a couple of casual comments.

“In Arizona,” said Bruce Bochy of the Giants, “if you don’t get the ball where you want it, you’re in trouble.”

Jake Peavy, although fully healthy, did not and was. Well, was in trouble if you consider getting hammered, those six runs, nine hits in 1 2/3 innings, trouble. And neither Peavy, two months from his 35th birthday, or Bochy tended to think along those lines.

Maybe in 20 games, maybe when April is close, it will be different. But, insisted Peavy, not the first game, when you’re trying to get your fastball over and nothing else matters. Which is why they’re called exhibition games, even dolled up with the Cactus League label (in Florida, it's the Grapefruit League).

Peavy, in the bigs since 2002, came to the Giants in 2014 by way of, in chronological order, the Padres, White Sox and Red Sox. He helped San Francisco win a pennant and World Series, but he had hip and back problems early in 2015 and didn’t do much until late in the season. He wasn’t going to overwork himself in the winter and reinjure himself. This February and March is for getting into shape and getting into the groove. If possible.

“Because I’m experienced,” said Peavy, “I was excited to get to pitch today.” It was only the Giants' second game of the spring, and a home game, before a heavily partisan crowd of 8,355 at Scottsdale Stadium.

 “But it wasn’t like I was trying to win the seventh game of the World Series.”

What he was trying to do, unsuccessfully, was find out what was wrong with his basic pitch, the one on which his whole repertoire depends, the fastball. Everything seemed fine in bullpen sessions, but against the Brewers, against batters, Peavy couldn’t throw the thing where he wanted.

“My fastball is everything,” he explained. “If I’m not throwing the fastball where I want to throw it — well, everything works off my fastball, the cutter (cut-fastball), curves, changeups. So I kept throwing it.” And from the first batter in the box for Milwaukee, Eric Young, who singled to right, the Brewers kept hitting it.

Pitching is where the Giants live, although they did hit well in 2015. Madison Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto, Jeff Samardzija — the last two signed as free agents in December — Matt Cain and Peavy are supposed to keep the opponents off the bases and San Francisco in race. So even in exhibitions, even in early March, even the least important situation becomes very important. Or one would surmise.

“I love our rotation,” said Peavy, unsure where he’ll fit in that rotation, but pointing out that depth cannot be underestimated. Peavy’s reputation is that of a man dominant in the early innings, then fading in the seventh or eighth.

“I feel quite a bit stronger all over,” said Peavy. “I’m refreshed. If you plan on playing a full season you’ve got to be smarter. I’m not going look today like I will at the end of the month.”

There are no scouting reports for exhibition games. The pitcher throws, the batter swings. And each keeps in mind what might happen if and when they face each other in the regular season.

In the top of the first, Carter came up with two runs in and a runner on third. He drove the ball over the right centerfield fence.

“I’m not going to throw Chris Carter a breaking ball,” said Peavy. “I may have to face him in a huge situation this year. You try to get ahead of a hitter. If you don’t, you better spot the ball. Arizona (with the elevation and dry air) is not the most fun place to do that, but it makes you a better pitcher.”

Better, one would think, than he was on Thursday.

Football made Samardzija appreciate baseball

By Art Spander

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — He was a football player, a very good one too, a receiver who set records at that most famous of football schools, Notre Dame. But Jeff Samardzija also played baseball, and he said perhaps the sport everyone thought he would choose as a pro provided the reason for the one he actually selected.

“Maybe playing football,” said Samardzija, “gave me an appreciation for pitching.”

He is a thinker, Samardzija, a fireballer. And Wednesday, in the Cactus League opener for the Giants, with whom last December he signed a $90 million, five-year contract, he did both, thinking and throwing.

Then, after the Giants’ 4-1 win over the Angels, Samardzija did a great deal of talking.

He threw 32 pitches in two innings, allowed a run and a hit, walked four.

Exactly as he would have wanted, a game in which he had to work, had to use his guile as well as his power.

“Trying not to do anything stupid,” said Samardzija, who didn’t.

An exhibition but hardly meaningless, at least not to Samardzija. Or to the Giants’ main man, Buster Posey, who insisted upon starting so he could get in synch with the new guy — and vice versa. An exhibition, but also an opportunity to learn.

“Buster is so cerebral,” said Samardzija. “He took the load off my shoulders. This was a great first day.”

Great because after four to five months of inactivity, the 31-year-old Samardzija was on a mound. And, in a way, on a soapbox. “I was OK putting the first guy on,” he said. “Even the second guy. I had to work out of something.”

Which he didn’t, since Angels catcher Carlos Perez, who led off with a double, eventually scored on a sacrifice fly after two walks. But Samardzija said he’ll get the ball down in the next game.

“I didn’t mind the first walk,” he said. “Didn’t want to walk the second one. Like pitching in the late innings, I had work out a situation there. It was good to get this one out of the way.”

Spring baseball is viewed differently from the dugout or clubhouse than it is from the stands, where more than 8,000 were crowded, dining, drinking, laughing and, when San Francisco got a home run from Conor Gillaspie in the third and then three fours in the sixth, cheering. 

When someone told Posey, who had one swing, one single and two innings behind the plate, that Samardzija wasn’t “just going through the motions,” Buster was happy. “Glad to hear him say that,” offered Posey of Samardzija. “Otherwise it’s a waste of time.”

Posey had faced Samardzija infrequently when Jeff was with the Cubs, Athletics and White Sox. The Cubs, who sent him to Oakland for young shortstop Addison Russell, tried to sign him again as a free agent last winter, but Samardzija decided on the Giants.

He spoke of the great charge-and-throw defensive play made by Kelby Tomlinson on the Angels with runners on in the top of the second. Tomlinson was at short, in place of All-Star Brandon Crawford, who was the Giants’ designated hitter. And Tomlinson is a second baseman, although he was a shortstop in this game.

“It’s not a coincidence they have a guy like Tomlinson who can step in,” said Samardzija. “That’s because of the organization. You understand why they’ve won.”

Samardzija didn’t dislike football. He simply enjoys the day-to-day pace of baseball. In football, he said, there’s a week between games. In baseball, there’s 24 hours.

Some time ago, in the late 1950s, Pat Richter was a multi-sport letterman for the University of Wisconsin and faced the same choice as Samardzija. The general manager of the Dodgers, trying to persuade Richter to sign with them, reportedly asked him, “What do you want, kid? A bonus or a limp?” Richter went to the NFL.

Unlike Samardzija.

“I love baseball,” said Samardzija. “I like talking about it. I like playing it.”

Assuming he plays it well, the Giants will love Samardzija. Maybe they already do.