S.F. Examiner: Opening Day reminder of last season’s woes

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

PHOENIX — Somewhere beyond the usual platitudes and justifications, the expected words that it was only one game and yes, baseball can be bewilderingly strange, is the unavoidable fact the Giants started the 2017 season exactly the way they ended the 2016 season: With a massive bullpen failure.

Say what you want, and what manager Bruce Bochy said Sunday was true to his character, that the Giants should have scored more, that the Arizona Diamondbacks had some good fortune — “seeing-eye hits,” is the phrase — and that a couple of calls by the umpires could have, more specifically, should have gone the other way.

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©2017 The San Francisco Examiner

S.F. Examiner: Questions for Giants as they drop eight

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Eight in a row for the Giants, the wrong way. True, they don’t count, but going a week without a win, even in the exhibition season brings back haunting memories of the second half of the 2016 regular season, when those losses did count, when San Francisco plunged from first place.

Madison Bumgarner pitched beautifully on a 72-degree Sunday afternoon, and that is what we should take from yet another Cactus League defeat for the Giants, this one to the Kansas City Royals, 4-3.

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©2017 The San Francisco Examiner

S.F. Examiner: Graveman tops Samardzija in Bay Bridge Series warmup

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Exhibition games are baseball in reverse. “You get the starters their work,” said Bob Melvin, the A’s manager, “and then it’s time for the young guys to finish and get the win.”

Which is exactly what happened Monday for Oakland. Against the Giants

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©2017 The San Francisco Examiner

S.F. Examiner: Baseball’s time in the sun

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

GOODYEAR, Ariz. – A manager’s dream. “I’m enjoying seeing those guys,” said Bruce Bochy. So are the rest of us. Not just the Giants, who Sunday out here on the desert among the scrub vegetation and abandoned jet planes, won another game.

Also the fans, few as showed up at Goodyear ballpark, seemingly halfway to California, which the Reds and Indians share each spring. It’s their time in the sun — and, yes, the sun was bright, if the temperature, 65, wasn’t that warm.

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©2017 The San Francisco Examiner

Newsday (N.Y.): Willie Mays, still a much-welcomed presence at Giants camp

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The eyes aren’t what they used to be, which is understandable, and to Willie Mays understandably frustrating. “I can’t see the ball,” he said when watching baseball. Then as if to remind us of skills once magical, he adds, “but I know where it’s going.”

Where Mays, 85, goes down here late mornings is to a table near a doorway in the San Francisco Giants spring training clubhouse. He can be found, bundled in a warm-up jacket, sitting, signing and ruminating.

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