Giants carry lead, and bad memories, to K.C.

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — This is a tale of accomplishment, of a man so skilled in his profession that he leaves others, his opponents, virtually helpless.

This also is a tale of wariness, of being alert that no matter how much Madison Bumgarner has done, winning World Series games and calling down echoes of Koufax, Gibson and Whitey Ford, the San Francisco Giants are far from done.

Mad Bum once more was magnificent Sunday night in Game 5 of the Series, a 5-0 Giants victory that gave them a three-to-two lead. “He was fantastic again,” affirmed Ned Yost,  the guy who manages the other team, Kansas City.

But as Yost made so clear and Giants followers know so well, the Series now goes to the other team’s ballpark, and that brings up unhappy thoughts.

It was 2002 when the Giants led the Angels three to two, went to Anaheim and lost the last two games and the Series.

Brandon Crawford is the Giants’ shortstop now and was one of the heroes Sunday night, driving in the first two runs. But in 2002 he was a 15-year-old in Danville, and a fan as passionate as those who filled AT&T Park Sunday night screaming and chanting.

“When we lost,” said Crawford of the Series 12 years ago, “I was depressed for a couple of days. I remember in Game 6 they had a 5-0 lead, and they lost.”

So it’s all there, the bad times, and now the thought of more good times, of adding another Series title to those of 2010 and 2012.   

The Giants are one game away. As they were in Anaheim.

“We’re going back to our home crowd,” said Yost, sticking in a dart. Game 6 is Tuesday. Game 7, if needed, is Wednesday.

“The place is going to be absolutely crazy. We’ve got to walk the tightrope now without a net, but our guys aren’t afraid of walking without a net.

“We fall off, and we’re dead. But we win Tuesday, nobody’s got a net.”

What the Giants have are memories. Long ago memories. Unpleasant memories.

If it could happen in ’02, it could happen in ’14. What the Giants probably won’t have unless there is a seventh game is Bumgarner.

“Would he be available if that situation came up?” Giants manager Bruce Bochy asked rhetorically after some journalist wondered if Bumgarner, who went nine innings and 117 pitches, could come in as a reliever in Game 7.

“Yeah,” said Bochy. “He’d have two days off, and he’s a strong kid. We wouldn’t mind pushing him one time, but the talk about doing it twice, we did have some concern.”

Bumgarner is 4-0 in four World Series starts, including two this time, with an 0.29 ERA. He’s allowed only 12 hits in 31 innings, and struck out 27, eight of those Sunday night.

It’s a truism of sport that if the opponent doesn’t score the worst you’ll ever get is a 0-0 tie. But the Giants are able to score, in their own unique manner. On Sunday night they got their first run when Crawford grounded out, their second when Crawford singled.

Then, most unlikely of all, they broke loose in the eighth when Juan Perez, a defensive specialist who had a paltry .170 batting average in the regular season, was sent up to bat for Travis Ishikawa — and hit a ball off the centerfield fence which scored two more runs.

The wizards keep casting their spell.

“That’s the way we do it,” said Crawford. “Our averages may not be high, but we can produce when we have to.”

Bumgarner, the 25-year-old lefty from North Carolina, has been remarkably productive. And to the other team, baffling. The Royals had only four hits and were able to get only one man as far as second.

"He's so fun to watch,” Crawford said of Bumgarner. “He's always fun to watch. In the postseason, you could look at him and he looks like he's just pitching in the middle of June, like it's no big deal. He takes the pressure off of everybody else. We just feed off of him."

Said Yost, the K.C. manager, “You know what (Bumgarner) does so well, and what he’s so impressive doing, he commands his fastball in and out and up and down. He commands his breaking ball in and out, and really can command that pitch down and away in the dirt when he needs to get a strike.”

Bumgarner, pure country, and the last year or two quite shaggy, with a beard and long hair, said he’s humbled to be compared with the greats of history.

When he did a TV interview in front of the Giants dugout, fans who had been yelling “MVP, MVP” simply let loose a resounding cheer. Always polite, Bumgarner tipped his cap.

“It’s something that’s tough to say right now,” Bumgarner insisted when asked about the meaning of the victory. “I’m just happy we won. That was a big game for us.”

Which put them in position for the game that’s even bigger, the one that would give them another World Series. The one they couldn’t get back when Brandon Crawford was a fan, not a hero.

Pablo, Petit, Pence are Giant together

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — This World Series of unpredictability took a few more wild steps on Saturday night, swinging from disappointment to relief, and leaving an emotionally spent crowd wondering what more can go wrong. Or right?

Friday night ended with a couple hundred spectators dressed in blue chanting from behind the first-base dugout, “Let’s go Royals,” and certainly a few hours later when Kansas City burst to a 4-1 lead it seemed the Royals were on their way.

But like that, the Giants, and about 98 percent of the sellout crowd of 43,066 at AT&T Park, awoke in a blend of big hits and big cheers, and after a enthralling, captivating game that lasted exactly four hours, San Francisco had an 11-4 victory and the Series was tied at two apiece.

And not even Royals manager Ned Yost could find fault, saying, “Oh, man. Somewhere inside of me secretly I had hoped it would go seven games for the excitement and the thrill of it. Sure looks that way.’’

We’ll know in two games, but now it’s certain to go six, with the fifth game Sunday night again amongst the bedlam and breezes of AT&T, where for good measure Saturday night not only did the Giants’ drought end but briefly so did Northern California’s. Yes, rain, if only a smattering, by the Bay.

We saw the past, what happened Saturday night, Pablo Sandoval proving he can hit as a righthanded batter, Hunter Pence coming through again and Yusmeiro Petit pitching beautifully, blending with the future — the pivotal fifth game, the Giants last in San Francisco this 2014 season.

Madison Bumgarner, who Giants manager Bruce Bochy so stubbornly and correctly held to his normal rest period instead of using him in the fourth game, will start against “Big Game” James Shields. Bumgarner won that matchup in the Series opener, but the way everything has gone so far precedent may be of no consequence.

“We got our tails whipped,” said Yost, who a long while ago grew up in Hayward, south of Oakland. “But it’s Game 4 of the World Series. We’re tied 2-2. How much more fun can than be. There is nothing better in the world. I never felt so good about getting my tail whooped in my life ... This is a phenomenal series. It’s exciting. It’s fun.”

The whoopers in this case, the Giants, would hardly disagree. Look, after the KC half of the third, the Royals were ahead 3-1, San Francisco starter Ryan Vogelsong was finished and although the players later said they knew they had time to come back, you can surmise the people in the seats were skeptical.

That top of the third took a half hour. It was excruciating for fans, as well as Vogelsong. Fall behind the Royals, and when the seventh inning rolls around the opponent rolls over, so dominating is their bullpen.

But the Giants picked up a run in the bottom of third when Buster Posey, who was hitting an awful .154 in the first three games, singled home pinch hitter Matt Duffy. Then, boom. Two more runs in the fifth to tie. Three more in the sixth. Four more in the seventh.

“When the lights go down in the city ...” Those lyrics to the Journey song were bellowed by a delirious, if off-tune, group of individuals finally able to let loose because their baseball team had broken loose.

Petit, the super fill-in, the guy who took over when Matt Cain underwent surgery and when Tim Lincecum couldn’t get people out, was — dare we use the word? — brilliant.

The winning pitcher, Petit went three scoreless innings to extend his postseason streak to 12. He is 3-0 in the postseason, including six innings in that 18-inning win over the Nationals in the Division series. He also set a major league record of retiring 46 consecutive batters.

“It’s a pretty nice weapon to have in the bullpen,” said Bochy, “a long guy like Petit who seems to calm things down the way he goes about his business, and of course the way he pitches.”

Sandoval had been sick Friday when his streak of reaching base safely in 25 straight postseason games came to a halt, and Saturday, batting righthanded against KC lefty Jason Vargas, struck out in his first two plate appearances.

But he singled in the fifth, part of the rally, then singled in two runs in the sixth. And no one seemed to care he hit .199 righthanded in the regular season.

“(Friday) night, he was feeling worse,” Bochy said about Sandoval. “I talked to him today. He felt great. I was a little concerned about him being a little washed out today. He goes out there and has a great game. It’s nice to have a switch-hitter that swings it well from both sides of the plate, and he seems to rise to the occasion when you need him.”

The Giants rose when the fans needed them.

“Yeah,” said Bochy, “it is exciting. Great game tonight. It’s obvious we think it’s a great game. These guys fought hard. I mean they scratched and clawed to get back into it. You get down against this club and that bullpen, and you have your work cut out.

“Do I wish it would go seven? The way these two teams go at it, it wouldn’t surprise me.”

The 2014 Royals are the 2012 and 2010 Giants

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — The template is as old as the game. The Giants used it in 2010 and 2012.

Now the 2014 Kansas City Royals are using it. The Royals are the new Giants.

Pitching wins, and the Royals have pitching, great pitching. From start to finish. Especially at the finish.

This supposedly was the one that tips the balance. When the first two games of the World Series are split, the metrics tell us, 70 percent of the time the team that wins the third game win the Series.

Well, the Royals took Game 3, won it, 3-2, Friday night at AT&T Park, and the mood by the Bay has gone gloomy. The crowd filed out in a state of disbelief.

The Giants never lost at home in their last two World Series, never failed before their boisterous fans. In fact, home or away, against the Rangers and Tigers they barely lost at all.

This is different, a shock perhaps, although to those who have followed the Royals through their remarkable postseason when they’ve won 10 of 11 games, probably not a shock.

It’s an electric, exciting baseball team that keeps on the pressure — just as the Giants are a team that never gives anything away, most of all a game.

No designated hitter for the American League Royals on Friday in a National League ballpark. No problem. Except for the Giants, who were down 1-0 three batters into the game and never caught up. Now, with Ryan Vogelsong scheduled to pitch for San Francisco on Saturday night in Game 4 — as scheduled — the Giants never may catch the Royals.

“If you look at their pitching,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said philosophically, “you can say they might not need the DH. That’s how well they threw the ball. It’s more like a National League team. Very well balanced. Speed. They do the little things well.

“Their defense played very well. We hit some balls hard. We couldn’t find one to fall in. Cain (rightfielder Lorenzo Cain) made a couple nice plays out there, but it always comes down to pitching. I don’t care if you’re in the National League or American League. If you pitched well, you probably have a chance to win.”

The Giants pitched well, although the very first ball thrown by Tim Hudson, finally in a World Series game after 16 big league seasons, was smacked off the left field wall — out there by the Chevron cars — for a double by Alcides Escobar.

“It was a fastball,” said Hudson. “He could just as easily have popped it up.” But these Royals don’t pop up, they pound. Two batters later, Cain, that pest, grounded out and scored Escobar from third.

When it was 2-0, in the top of the sixth, with one out and a runner on second, Javier Lopez, the lefty, was bought in to face Eric Hosmer, a lefthanded batter. Lopez got two strikes, but Hosmer stretched the count to 3-2, then singled home Alex Gordon. That run was the difference. Kansas City forces the issue.

“He did what the Royals have been doing all postseason,” said Lopez.

Which is finding a way to beat you.

There was some discussion between Bochy and pitching coach Dave Righetti about perhaps using Madison Bumgarner on Saturday in a game of such importance.

A loss in Game 4, and the Giants would be where in 2010 and 2012 they had the other teams, in a hole from which excavation would be impossible.

But what we’ve learned about Bochy in the seasons he’s been in control is that he is very much in control. He stays the course, allows the patterns to remain unchanged.

“It’s confidence in (Vogelsong),” said Bochy, “and we’ve pushed Madison pretty good here. So we’re going to keep things in order and go with Vogey. He has experience. He’s pitched great in postseason. It was a good ballgame tonight, but we’re not going to change things because we lost.”

And, Bochy reminded, “If Madison pitched (Saturday), we’re going to have to pitch somebody the next day.”

San Francisco’s pitching wasn’t the problem for San Francisco. Kansas City’s pitching was the problem for San Francisco. The Giants had only four hits, received no walks. 

Jeremy Guthrie, the Stanford kid, was excellent in the five-plus innings he worked. The people who followed from that in-your-face bullpen, Kelvin Herrera, Brandon Finnegan, Wade Davis and Greg Holland, were no less excellent. Maybe more, if that’s possible.

“It’s a pretty good bullpen,” said Bochy, understating the situation somewhat. “It’s the reason they’re here. You get late in the ballgame, and you’re going to face those guys. You have your work cut out. We know that. Still, you hope to score off them.”

In the bottom of the ninth, against Holland, the Giants had their big three: Buster Posey, Pablo Sandoval and Hunter Pence. Posey was the only one to get a ball out of the infield. A soft, sad response.

“The key factor in all this for us,” said Ned Yost, the Royals’ manager, “is timely hitting, great defense, really solid starting pitching but a dynamic back of the bullpen.”

Sounds like the Giants when they were champions.

Ishikawa’s shot brings Giants a pennant, and memories

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — Always the Giants, in New York, in San Francisco. Always the miracle workers, bending reality, banging dramatic home runs, winning pennants.

This one, on a Thursday night by the Bay that will cling to the memory, wasn’t exactly Bobby Thomson homering off Ralph Branca, and the great Red Smith writing, “Truth has overcome anything fiction could envision.” But it will do.

In 1951, the Giants came from more than a dozen games behind the Brooklyn Dodgers to tie, and Thomson’s “shot heard ‘round the world,” gave them the playoff series. That was forever.

This was for now, and yet still for a lifetime. “What a story,” said Giants manager Bruce Bochy.” Indeed.

Travis Ishikawa, once a Giant, then a castoff, returned to hit his own Thomson-esque three-run blow in the bottom of the ninth Thursday, giving San Francisco a 6-3 victory and the pennant.

The Giants won the best-of-seven National League Championship Series from St. Louis, four games to one, and for the third time in five years march on to the baseball’s ultimate, the World Series.

For four games the Giants did the little things, racing the bases, forcing the issue, riding key hits and a bit of luck. But in the fifth game they went big, breaking loose after six postseason games without a home run to get three homers, including the game-winner by the most unlikely of heroes, Ishikawa.

Joe Panik, the rookie second baseman, had a two-run shot in the third. Then off the bench, Michael Morse, pinch-hitting, tied the game, 3-3, with a ball into the left field bleachers in the eighth. After that, it was a given somehow the Giants would get this game.

But no one figured on Ishikawa, a first baseman forced to play left field where in the second he misplayed a fly ball that allowed the Cards to score. “It was a terrible read on my part,” said Ishikawa. “I ran a tough route.”

His teammates wouldn’t let him suffer. “I told him don’t worry,” said Jake Peavy, the pitcher San Francisco got in a trade from Boston. “We’ll get it back. That’s the way this team is, so spirited.”

And so intriguing. Ishikawa was a backup on the Giants’ 2010 World Series champions, but he ached to play. What he did, however, was move, not play, joining four major league and numerous minor league franchises. The worst season was 2013 when he was with teams in four eastern cities and rarely saw his family in San Jose. He thought about quitting.

Instead for 2014 he signed with Pittsburgh, but when early in the season the Pirates wanted to ship him to Triple A, he requested his release. He joined the Giants — who sent him to the minors.

“I remember calling a buddy of mine halfway through the year,” said Ishikawa, “crying in Texas. No matter what, I was 0-for-4 and just didn’t look like I could hit a ball off a tee. He continued to encourage me.

“And after the All-Star break I was able to do just enough to allow the Giants to bring me up, which I wasn’t expecting ... I came up, just thinking I was going to be a pinch-hitter, and obviously Bochy, with his mastermind of intuition, just throwing me out in the outfield and giving me this opportunity. It’s unbelievable.”

A phrase that describes the first home run to decide a pennant for the Giants since, yes, Thomson’s six decades earlier.”

Not that the 31-year-old Ishikawa thought it was clearing the bricks in right field when he connected. He believed it would be off the wall, still enough to bring home Joaquin Arias, running for Pablo Sandoval, from third with the winner.

“It was a 2-0 count,” said Ishikawa. “I knew (Michael Wacha, who had been brought in to pitch the ninth) didn’t want to go to 3-0. I was just trying to be aggressive, put the barrel of the bat on the ball.

“When I first hit it I thought it was going to be a walkoff hit, so I was throwing my hands in the air, and then I just heard the crowd going crazy. So my thought was, ‘OK, if this gets out, it’s going to be fantastic.’ “

Which it did, and which it was.

All this way, and no mention yet of the wonderful Madison Bumgarner, who started and allowed only five hits, but because two were home runs, one each in the fourth by Matt Adams and Tony Cruz, left after eight innings trailing 3-2.

“That was as fun a game as you can have,” said Mad Bum, chosen the MVP of the NLCS for shutting out the Cards in the first game and keeping them under control in this fifth game.

“I don’t know I’m 100 percent deserving of it,” said Bumgarner. “We’re just excited to be moving on.”

Probably no less excited to get out a clubhouse where for a half-hour the Giants had doused each other, and trapped media, in Mumm’s sparkling wine. “It’s time to celebrate,” confirmed Bochy.

Not surprisingly when the Series begins Tuesday against the Royals in Kansas City, Bumgarner will be the Giants pitcher. “Yeah, definitely,” said Bochy.

And the guess is Ishikawa, the out-of-position first baseman, will be in left.

“I’m sure he’s going to wake up and realize what just happened,” said Bochy. “He’s such a great kid. ... You know it’s all about perseverance, and he didn’t give up. He said there’s a time or two he thought about it, and I’m sure it’s all worthwhile now.”

Giants' clubhouse sign says it all: ‘Never Unprepared’

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — This was the game they should have lost. Well, could have lost. Their starting pitcher couldn’t make it into the fourth. The other team, the Cardinals, was banging balls off fences and, like that, was in front, 4-1.

Yet once again, the Giants found a way.

Once again the Giants pecked and pestered, getting great work from the bullpen and great movement from base runners, pressing the issue until the Cardinals were forced into making wrong decisions.

“Never Unprepared.” That small sign is posted on the Giants’ clubhouse door. Always ready. Always willing. To take the extra base. To take the mound, if only to face one batter.

“Whatever we need,” said Javier Lopez, the lefthander who was the fifth of the seven San Francisco pitchers. “We’re not flashy.”

Who needs flashy? The Giants beat St. Louis, 6-4, Wednesday night at AT&T Park, where the music pounded and the rally rags waved. They’re up three games to one in the best of seven National League Championship Series. They’re one game away from making to the World Series for the third time in five years.

But they’re also wary. Two years ago, 2012, it was the Cardinals who had the 3-1 lead in the NLCS. And the Giants won three in a row. They know what’s possible. Even with Madison Bumgarner pitching in Thursday’s Game 5.

“Great win, great comeback,” said Giants manager Bruce Bochy. “We’ve won three. But we have work to do.”

The work they’ve done in the first four games has been outstanding, if understated. Once more, no home runs — for the sixth straight game of the postseason — but beautiful defense and capable offense, waiting out a walk instead of flailing at a pitch, knowing what to do if there’s a deep fly or a soft grounder.

“It has to start somewhere,” said Bochy.

It started everywhere. It started when Yusmeiro Petit came in to pitch the fourth inning after Ryan Vogelsong, who had been so effective in his previous five postseason games, was so ineffective.

Petit, who would get the win, went three innings, allowing only one hit. Then Jeremy Affeldt went two-thirds of an inning. And Jean Machi one batter. And Lopez one-third of an inning. And Sergio Romo one inning. And finally Santiago Casilla one inning, the ninth, if one in which he gave up his first hit since September 11, a stretch of 10 games.

It started with pinch hitter Joaquin Arias singling to begin the third, Buster Posey singling, Pablo Sandoval walking and Hunter Pence singling. Now the score was 4-3. Now the momentum had switched.

The sixth was classic Giants less-is-more baseball. Juan Perez, pinch hitting (well, pinch walking), got to first. Brandon Crawford singled. Pinch hitter Matt Duffy sacrificed. Gregor Blanco grounded to first, but Matt Adams, after fielding the ball, couldn’t get Perez at the plate. The game was tied.

Not for long. Joe Panik also grounded to first, but Adams stepped on the bag, removing the force, and when he threw high to second to try for Blanco, Crawford dashed home from third.

Fundamental baseball. “Never Unprepared” baseball.

“I had talked to (third base coach) Tim Flannery,” said Crawford. “He said if there was a throw to second to take off for home. That’s what happened. We’re putting the pressure on.

“A big reason for our success is we’ve been getting on base and playing defense.”

Said Bochy, “Great base running by Crawford. If you’re not hitting the long ball, you have to find ways to manufacture runs.”

Neither team made an error that would be recorded in the box score in the a game that was just seven minutes short of four hours, but the Cardinals made the sort of botches that are the difference in playoff baseball.    

“We found a way to score a couple of weird ones there,” said Posey, the Giants' leader. He drove in three runs and scored one.

“I can speak as a catcher. Sometimes those two-out RBIs can be big in shifting momentum.”

The runs in the third, the ones that brought the Giants into the game, as they also did the unsettled sellout crowd of 43,147, were scored with two outs. You sensed then the Cards might be in trouble.

“You have to do the little things,” said Bochy in a message repeated more than once of late. “Granted we’ve gotten a couple breaks, but at the same time, we’ve done some good things, little things. Arias pinch hits, and we find a way to get him across. Now you’re getting a little bit closer, and the hope starts to build up and the momentum starts to change, and that’s what happened.

“I’ve always said, to win a game you need pitching and you need timely hits. And tonight we got them.”

And got to within a game of another World Series.