Red Sox beat Giants at Fenway West

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — Bruce Bochy told us it was just a game. Of course, that was before it was played. That was two hours before the first pitch, and a reporter wondered if the Giants against the Red Sox would give both teams, particularly San Francisco, the chance to find out whether each was as good as some thought.

Including the players.

“Same thing when the Cubs came in,” said Bochy, the Giants manager. “What these guys (his Giants) have been through, I don’t think they have to measure themselves against anybody.” Then he added, “This is a tough group, Boston.”

Very tough. And if the game, which the Sox won 5-3 in 10 cold innings Tuesday night at AT&T Park, wasn’t a measure, for the Giants it had to be a disappointment — and proof that missed tags and wild throws will beat you just as quickly as big hits.

No, this one wasn’t ordinary. Maybe no game involving the Red Sox is ordinary. Boston people can’t get out of their city quick enough. They go to Florida, to California, everywhere.

But if they leave the premises, they don’t leave their fanaticism for the old town team. They take great delight in overwhelming visiting ballparks, chanting “Let’s go Boston,” and generally acting as if the Red Sox had never traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees.

It’s one thing when, say, the Boston expatriates fill the normally empty seats at the Oakland Coliseum when the Red Sox face the A’s. But to see them swarming sold out AT&T is a bit unnerving. The place looked and sounded like Fenway West.

“Boston has a huge following,” Bochy as much as warned pre-game when asked if this two-game series were special, “and so do we. Both are storied franchises that have been very successful the past decade. It creates interest. These two teams are having great years.”

The most recent part of the Giants’ year has been less than great. San Francisco now has dropped three straight, two on the road to the St. Louis Cardinals and then the return home against the Red Sox.

“The little things hurt us,” said Bochy. He meant catcher Trevor Brown throwing the ball into center field on Jackie Bradley Jr.’s steal in the seventh, then on a ground ball to short by pinch hitter David Ortiz, the runner from first, Chris Young, eluding the tag by a diving Brandon Crawford. What looked like it could have been a double play instead was only a single out, and Bradley dashed in from third to tie the game, 3-3.

In the 10^th, with Santiago Casilla working his second inning for the Giants, Boston’s Mookie Betts laid down a bunt with two on and no one out — and beat it out. “We didn’t handle that one,” said Bochy. Not at all.

The Giants did get the runner from third on a force at home, but then with two strikes Xander Bogaerts blooped a ball in front of center fielder Denard Span, driving in the game-winners.

If there was any consolation for the Giants, it was the pitching of Albert Suarez, making his second start of the season. “We just want him to give us a chance,” Bochy said before the game. “I hope he throws like he did in his last start.”

He threw better, allowing only five hits, one walk and two earned runs in 6 1/3 innings. “Albert did a great job,” affirmed Bochy. 

Which most of us wouldn’t say about Casilla, although Bochy wasn’t critical of his closer, especially since he pitched more than the normal one inning. Sandy Leon led off the 10th with a double, however, and Casilla and the Giants were in trouble.

“That’s a tough lineup,” said Bochy of the Red Sox. “They lead the majors in offense and scoring. I thought our pitching did a very good job.”

When someone wondered if he might change his closer, Bochy all but shrugged. “I still have confidence in Casilla,” he said.

Giants do everything they can to lose

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — The Giants did everything they could to lose it. And succeeded.
  
Just one of 162, certainly, and there are going to be games like this, but, full of errors and other misplays, particularly worrisome nonetheless.
   
Maybe former Giants shortstop and current Comcast TV commentator Rich Aurilia was a bit strong when, after an erratic top of the 11th inning Tuesday that made the difference in Arizona’s 6-4 win, he tweeted, “Terrible baseball in this half inning.”
    
Strong but hardly inaccurate.
   
He was referring to Andres Torres watching a ball fall for a double in that half inning, then an error by first baseman Brandon Belt on a one-bounce throw from Pablo Sandoval, then a wild pitch by Santiago Casilla.
  
“We probably should have been better there,” said Bruce Bochy, the Giants’ manager.
   
Matt Cain, the Giants’ starter, still searching for the dominance of last season, also probably should have been better there.
  
He had some bad breaks — the first batter of the game was safe on one of the three errors San Francisco would make. And then against the nemesis, Paul Goldschmidt, he made a bad pitch in the third inning, a pitch that was immediately turned into two-run homer.
  
Bochy, always the optimist, didn’t seem displeased with Cain, who went six innings without a decision and still is winless in 2013.
  
“He threw well at times,” said Bochy of Cain, who struck out six and allowed five hits. “Matt settled down. One pitch got away. It was a mistake, and that was against a guy who did some damage.”
  
It was the Arizona starter, Patrick Corbin, who was doing damage to the Giants. He retired the first nine betters in order and gave up only three hits through seven innings.
  
San Francisco, with Brandon Crawford tripling to center, however, picked up two runs in the eighth, and then Brandon Belt, pinch-hitting for Joaquin Arias, homered into McCovey Cove in the ninth to make it 4-4.
  
The usual sellout crowd at AT&T, the 177th straight, shook off its torpor and the icicles (summer left in late morning), screaming, chanting and thinking that as Monday night the home team would find a way.
   
Yes, as Bochy says virtually every game, these Giants, the World Series Champion Giants, prove resilient. But also at times, they tend to inefficient.
  
You can shrug off Sandoval getting thrown out by what, 20 feet or 25, attempting to score from second on Hunter Pence’s two-out single to right. It was the onetime Giant, Cody Ross, who cut him down. It was the third base coach, Tim Flannery, who sent him home.
  
“A two-out base hit,” said Bochy, whose managerial skills are rarely questioned, “you try to score. Ross charged it well. That’s part of the game.”
  
Part of this game, a huge part, was the Giants looking bewildered at the plate against the left-handed Corbin and incompetent with the gloves against the ground balls.
  
Three errors mean the other team figuratively gets 30 outs instead of 27. And wild pitches with a man on third in a tie game are ruination.
  
As Bochy said, you play enough games and those things occur. But for a team constructed upon pitching and with only one starter, Sandoval, who could be timed by an hourglass, hitting at least .300, when errors and errant pitches occur, too often you lose.
  
The Giants had won seven in a row at AT&T, and since baseball is a game of averages, surely they were due to drop one. It’s the way they dropped it that causes dyspepsia.
    
In the mind’s eye there’s Sandoval, rumbling into the end of an inning — yes, we’ll shrug it off — then moments later Casilla bouncing a ball as if he were a bowler in cricket rather than a pitcher in baseball.
  
Maybe the Giants should find satisfaction that, for a second straight game against the Diamondbacks, they rallied. But this time, it only extended the time until the eventual disappointment.
  
Bochy was asked why he allows his starting pitchers to stay in a game when they don’t appear to be particularly sharp, but it’s obvious. They are the strength of this Giants team, even on nights when they’re not particularly strong. Besides, he doesn’t want to overwork his bullpen.
  
“They’ve earned the right to stay in,” Bochy reminded, not that anyone who’s studied the Giants needed reminding. “You’re going to allow your guys to work.”
    
Cain worked, and that’s a good description. It wasn’t easy. He left trailing by four runs. The Giants managed to get those four and get even. After that, it was an embarrassment and a defeat.