Giants outplaying, outpitching the Tigers

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO – Jim Leyland took exception to the question. “Breaks?’’ he responded rhetorically. “I don’t think the Giants are getting any breaks. They’re outplaying us.”

Most of all, they’re outpitching the Detroit Tigers. Which in baseball is where it all begins. And ends. The adage can be repeated forever: If the other team doesn’t score, you can’t lose.

The other team, the Detroit Tigers, managed by Jim Leyland, didn’t score Thursday night. And so beaten, 2-0, by a team that barely scored, Detroit has lost the first two games of the 2012 World Series.

Defense wins. In baseball, defense begins with pitching. And ends with pitching.

With Barry Zito fooling the Tigers on Wednesday night. With Madison Bumgarner, who had been fighting himself, who had been getting chased from games in the fourth inning, stunning them Thursday night.

These are the Giants we’ve come to expect, the Giants who throw strikes and make big plays, such as Gregor Blanco firing to Marco Scutaro, whose relay cut down Prince Fielder at the plate. And make scoring against them almost an impossibility.

In the last five postseason games, the closing three against St. Louis in the National League Championship Series and the first two in the World Series, Giant pitching has given up runs in only three different innings. Three of 45.

A run in 27 innings to the Cards. Three runs in 18 innings to the Tigers, who were shut out only twice during the regular season. One run in the sixth on Wednesday, then, almost as a gift, two runs in the ninth. And none Thursday on an evening at AT&T so full of noise and tension that 42,855 fans at AT&T Park may never unwind.

The way they were starting to think the Tigers would never score.

“This was a really good World Series game,’’ said Leyland. “It didn’t turn out right for us . . . I don’t have any perspective. We got two hits tonight. I’m certainly not going to sit here and rip my offense. I think our offense is fine . . .”

It’s just that the Giants’ pitching has been better.

Santiago Casillla took over for Bumgarner in the eighth. Sergio Romo took over for Casilla in the ninth. “Those fans,’’ said Casilla of the crowd, “I’m 5-feet-10. The way they cheer when I’m on the mound, I feel about 6-feet-10. They’re unbelievable.”

A word some might apply to the Giants’ pitching. Zito overcame his demons of the past. Bumgarner overcame his struggles of the present. San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy even took Bumgarner out of the rotation after he couldn’t make it through the fourth inning of the NLCS opener against St. Louis.

“I thought the first inning would be critical for him, for his confidence,” Bochy said of Bumgarner’s opportunity Thursday night. “Also to see where he was at.”

Where he was at was back in 2010, when as a rookie Bumgarner was so impressive in a World Series start against the Texas Rangers.

“I mean,” said Bochy, after Bumgarner allowed only two hits and two walks to the Tigers, “what a job he did. Dave Righetti, our pitching coach, did a great job getting him back on track. He had great poise out there with a great delivery, and he stayed on it for seven innings.

“He needed a break, and I thought he benefited from it, both mentally and physically.”

No question everything so far has gone the way of the Giants, who, along with the nightly sellout crowds, waving their “rally rags,” singing along with the music of Journey, dressing in all sorts of loony attire of orange and black, have turned AT&T into a magical place.

On Wednesday night, Angel Pagan’s bouncer hit third, spun crazily and bounced into left for a double. On Thursday night, Gregor Blanco’s sacrifice bunt virtually dug a hole inches inside the third base line, loading the bases with nobody out in the seventh.

When Brandon Crawford grounded to second, the Tigers chose to go after the double play – which they got – instead of throwing home, and the Giants went in front, 1-0.

“It’s not debatable,” Leyland said of the decision, “because if we don’t score it doesn’t make any difference anyway. I can’t let them open the game up.”

Bochy said the difference in Bumgarner from his last few games was the delivery. “It was simpler, more compact,” he said, “and I think he was able to get the ball where he wanted to because of that.”

Asked if there was a different feel, Bumgarner, a laconic sort, but not without a sense of humor, answered, “Yeah, I went into the seventh inning instead of getting took out in the third.”

OK, his English isn’t perfect, but his fastball was.

“I think the only difference,” Bumgarner added, “was being able to make pitches. I hadn’t been able to do that this postseason, and tonight Buster (Posey) caught a great game, the defense did great.“I wanted to go out there and pitch well for our guys and the fans.”

He, Casilla and Romo couldn’t have pitched any better. If the other team doesn’t score you can’t lose. And the Giants didn’t.

Pablo and Zito: End of the bench to top of the world

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO – They sat side by side on the dais, heroes on a heroic night, so near to each other and so far from the pain of 2010. That was the World Series that Barry Zito didn’t even get on the roster, the World Series that Pablo Sandoval only started one day.

That Series they also were also side by side, on the end of the bench, watching their Giant teammates, supportive but surely disappointed – one not even being allowed to play, the other having misplayed himself out the lineup.

But now it’s the Series of 2012, and on a wild and historic Wednesday night by the bay, everything changed.

Sandoval rang down the echoes of the Babe, of Mr. October, of Albert Pujols, hitting three home runs.

Zito pitched elegantly and tantalizingly, keeping one of the baseball’s top offensive teams to a single run before leaving.

And the Giants, the underdogs, the team nobody east of the Sierra Nevada understands or tries to understand, clubbed the Detroit Tigers, 8-3, in Game 1 of the Series.

That the other starter, the guy for the Tigers, was Justin Verlander, arguably the best pitcher in baseball, seemed make everything perfect – for Sandoval, for Zito, for all the Giants and maybe most of all for 42,855 fans engulfed in their own gleeful bedlam.

Four in a row now for the Giants, three over St. Louis in the National League Championship Series and then the opener of the World Series. Four in a row, in which the opposition scored a total of four runs – and two of those came in the ninth inning by Detroit. Four in a row in which San Francisco scored a total of 29 runs.

Sandoval got it going, a homer with no one on to dead center in the first. Then he kept it going, a two-run home to left in the third. Then he made it go some more, another solo to center in the fifth. Each inning climaxed with a playing of that long-ago song from the days of Mays, McCovey and Cepeda, “Bye Bye, Baby.’’

“To hit three home runs,’’ said Giants manager Bruce Bochy, “that’s always a surprise. But the guy can hit. He’s got great ability to get the good part of the bat on the ball and threw out some great at-bats . . . Just a tremendous night. A night I know he’ll never forget.”

Nor will anyone else. Sandoval, the Panda, the player replaced by Juan Uribe in the 2010 Series because he was overweight and underachieving, is the first ever to hit home runs his first three at bats in a Series game.  Babe Ruth, who twice hit three, Reggie Jackson and Pujols needed to come to the plate four times. In his fourth at bat, Sandoval singled.

“Man, I still can’t believe it,” was Sandoval’s opening statement of his accomplishment, even if everyone in the place could believe it.

“When you’re a little kid, you dream of being in the World Series, but I was thinking of being in this situation, three homers one game. You have to keep focused, keep focused and playing your game.”

Sandoval had a big hit off Verlander during July’s All-Star Game, where the National League's win gave the Giants the home field advantage in the best-of-seven Series, four games if it lasts the full seven.

“For me, I just go there and don’t think too much,’’ he said. “This means a lot. In 2010 I was part of the World Series. I didn’t get a chance to play too much. I’m enjoying this World Series. I’m enjoying all my moments. You never know when it’s going to happen again.”

Sandoval is 26. Zito, 34, may have wondered it was going to happen ever. He had that $127-million contract. He struggled. The fans booed. He was an outcast. Until 2012. The Giants have won 14 consecutive games in which Barry Zito started.

“I battled in September to make the postseason roster,’’ admitted Zito, haunted by his failure two years earlier. “The last thing I would have expected was to be starting in Game 1. Just the opportunity was magical. To be able to go up against Verlander and give our team a chance to up, 1-0, and the fact that we won, it’s just kind of surreal.”

Sandoval tried to stay cool about his night, unlike his teammates.

“When he hit his third,” Zito said, “man we were just going nuts in there. We were going nuts.”

A glance at the rally-rag waving, shrieking fans proved they weren’t the only ones.

“We didn’t know at that point if it ever had been done,’’ said Zito, “and we’re just like, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ “

Or, linking Sandoval and Zito, oh, good gosh.

“We got ups and downs in our career,” Sandoval insisted. “Not every year is going to be up . . . so I see my teammate, Barry, and I’m very happy for him. He started the first game of the World Series. We were sitting down on the bench in 2010.”

Now they’re on top of the world.

SF Examiner: Things are looking up in NorCal

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

John Cook, who won the Charles Schwab Cup Championship on Sunday at Harding Park, was saying as a kid who grew up in Southern California — or “SoCal,” as he phrased it — how much he reveled in beating people and teams from Northern California.

Read the full story here.

C0pyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company

SF Examiner: Couples caught up in Giants fever

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

He’s a Dodger fan. Or was, because in truth Fred Couples was a Joe Torre fan, and for three years, Torre managed the Dodgers. But most of all, Couples is a baseball fan, a sports fan, and like so many others, he was mesmerized by the Giants.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company

SF Examiner: Giants deliver in biggest of ways

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

The disbelief has passed. The euphoria never will. The sporting world is rearranged. “I can’t put it into words,” said Buster Posey, in that Giants clubhouse of glory and history.

Then the rest of us must try.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company