Newsday (N.Y.): Cain, bullpen blank Phillies as Giants take 2-1 lead

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

SAN FRANCISCO -- Baseball momentum took another turn -- to the left, of course -- at the Golden Gate. The National League Championship Series that appeared to be in possession of the Phillies now seems in the grasp of the Giants.

Giants manager Bruce Bochy wouldn't necessarily disagree after a 3-0 win Tuesday gave his team a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven.

"I mean,'' Bochy said, "it's a 2-1 lead, that's what it is. We have a lot of baseball left, and we're playing a great team.''

Then he added, "We're going to win. We know it.''

They're going to win if they get another pitching performance as good as the one Matt Cain gave. He limited Philly to two hits in seven innings.

They're going to win if Bochy keeps making all the right moves. Tuesday he elevated Edgar Renteria to leadoff -- because besides the benched Andres Torres, there was no other option -- and watched in the fourth inning as Renteria got the Giants' first hit off Cole Hamels and scored their first run.

They're going to win if Cody Ross, the accidental hero, keeps producing. The August waiver claim from the Marlins hit three homers in the first two games against the Phils, and it was his single that drove home Renteria.

"He's definitely hot,'' Hamels said of Ross. "He's been battling and hitting pitches that most normal people can't hit at this time.''

What Cain, with an 0-3 record and a 6.23 ERA previously against Philadelphia, hit were the spots he wanted. "I was just trying to focus on making my pitches and getting in the counts where I'm ahead,'' Cain said, "and trying to make [the Phillies] a little more defensive.''

With two outs in the seventh, Bochy jogged to the mound after Cain hit his second batter of the game, Carlos Ruiz, and walked pinch hitter Ross Gload. When the manager went back without bringing in a reliever, the sellout crowd of 43,320 chanted its approval. Cain then retired Shane Victorino.

"I wanted to check on him, see where he's at,'' Bochy said of Cain. "He was fine. There was no doubt I wanted to keep him out there.''

Phillies manager Charlie Manuel, trying to reach the World Series for the third straight season, said of Cain: "He was too good. He didn't give us any runs. Even though he hit a couple of batters and he had three walks. When he got in trouble, he got even better, seemed like.''

Javier Lopez worked a 1-2-3 eighth before Brian Wilson earned his second save of the series, getting Raul Ibañez to ground into a game-ending double play.

The Giants looked helpless in Game 2 against Roy Oswalt, with Torres striking out four times. He's 1-for-9 in the series. Aaron Rowand replaced Torres in center, and he doubled in the fifth and scored the third run.

"He does a great job,'' Cain said of Bochy, "of getting the right guys in at the right time.''

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SF Examiner: Bochy pushes all the right buttons for Giants

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

SAN FRANCISCO — He’s so very San Francisco, Bruce Bochy — unpretentious, unaffected and competent to the max. Maybe not a genius, but as far as managing the Giants, he’ll do until someone better comes along.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company

SF Examiner: Giants have no choice but to shake things up

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

The possibility became a reality. The Phillies, as suspected, have every bit what the Giants have in pitching. And as it became painfully apparent, much more than the Giants have in hitting.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company

SF Examiner: Postseason baseball back in the Bay

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

SAN FRANCISCO — The Atlanta Braves have better hitting, and even if you’re an optimist and figure the Giants can go the next step, there’s no way they beat the Philadelphia Phillies. Unless they do, and then if it’s New York Yankees or Tampa Bay Rays in the World Series. It’s a given, top to bottom, American League teams are superior to those from the National League.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Baseball Defies Predictions of Doom

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

The game died years ago. Isn't that what we were told? Baseball was the echo of another time, men in baggy flannel standing around while the world sped past.

It didn't work on television, trying to cram that huge expanse onto a small screen. And kids who weren't playing video games supposedly were playing soccer, on baseball fields.

But here are the Yankees and Phillies going at it in this World Series in October 2009 as they did in the World Series in October 1950, and Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Howard are being given space in the sports pages equal to that of Brett Favre journeying back to Green Bay.

Sure, it's because of the Yankees, the most famous sporting franchise in North America, a team of wealth, pinstripes and history. The Yanks cannot be ignored. Nor, with this World Series, can baseball.

They had a 13.8 overnight Nielsen rating for Game 1, NFL type numbers, and presumably the figures will be about the same for Game 2, when the Yankees, hailed and hated, tied things up.

Baseball. "You win with pitching,'' said New York's Derek Jeter after the Yankees beat Philly, 3-1, Thursday in Game 2. Always will win with pitching.

The Phils took the first game, 6-1. Always have won with pitching.

Baseball. "Ninety feet between bases,'' wrote the late Red Smith, "is the closest man has ever come to perfection.''

Baseball, a game of axioms and survival. Despite the Black Sox scandal, despite the shutdowns and strikes, despite the despair over steroids, the sport keeps staggering on.

Gene Mauch, known infamously as the manager of the 1964 Phillies, who leading by 6½ games in September lost 10 in a row, told us, "Cockroaches and baseball keep coming back.'' And so baseball has returned in all its glory, old and new.

"Hypnotic tedium" was a description of baseball by Philip Roth, whose canon of work includes "The Great American Novel,'' dealing with the fortunes of a homeless baseball team. But Roth said not until he got to Harvard did he "find anything with a comparable emotional atmosphere and aesthetic appeal.'' Baseball was "the literature of my boyhood.''

The essence of baseball is cumulative tension. Each pitch adds to the question, the doubt. Does Cliff Lee go inside or outside to Jorge Posada? Does A.J. Burnett throw curves or fastballs to Chase Utley?

It's cold in the east. The games start too late -- although not as late as in past years -- and go on forever. But New York and Philly are enthralled. So is much of America.

Baseball is the only team sport not played against a clock. It's the only team sport where a manager hikes to the mound to stall for time, where an argument with an official is not only accepted it's expected -- even if never without positive results --where fans, like Jeffrey Mayer and Steve Bartman, may affect the outcome.

Baseball requires patience and persistence. The most famous cry is not "Play ball'' but "Wait ‘til next year.''

The Yankees have been waiting for some time. The Phillies, on the contrary, are trying to win a second straight championship, and you only wish the late James Michener, who authored dozens of books, could be around.

Michener once wrote a New York Times piece about his flawed love of the Phillies, which began in 1915 when he was 8 years old and continued until his death in 1997. "Year after year,'' Michener conceded, "they wallowed in last place.''

A young literary critic confronted Michener and pointed out, "You seem to be optimistic about the human race. Don't you have a sense of tragedy?''

He answered, "Young man, when you root for the Phillies, you acquire a sense of tragedy.''

The Phillies are no longer tragic. They are involved in a World Series destined to go no fewer than five games and maybe, with luck, six or seven.

The Yankees have the prestige and the bullpen. The Phillies have a high degree of self-confidence. Baseball has an attraction involving two of the country's more passionate sporting cities, which happen to be located 100 miles apart.

Out west they wanted the Dodgers against the Angels, but truth tell this one is better, a team not many people other than baseball purists really know, the Phillies, and a team that because of its $200 million payroll and stars even the non-fan knows, those Damn Yankees.

And remember, you win with pitching.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was recently honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.

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