SF Giants Press Clips Saturday, July 21, 2018
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SF Giants Press Clips Saturday, July 21, 2018 San Francisco Chronicle Giants top A’s 5-1 in matchup of astute pitching pick-ups Susan Slusser The two shrewdest recent additions to Bay Area rotations faced each other Friday night at the Coliseum, and veteran Edwin Jackson (A’s) and rookie Dereck Rodriguez (Giants) continued their stingy ways. Jackson, signed to a minor-league deal June 6, turned in yet another quality start for Oakland, but Rodriguez outpitched him in the Giants’ 5-1 victory. Infielder Ryder Jones, filling in while Brandon Belt was on a likely one-game paternity leave, provided the deciding blow off Jackson, a homer off the foul pole in right in the fifth inning, and Pablo Sandoval added a solo shot in the seventh to end Jackson’s night. Rodriguez signed a minor-league deal with the Giants in November, and the team has won the past seven games in which the right-hander has appeared, including six starts. Friday, he worked 61/3 innings and gave up one run and three hits, walked none and struck out five while hitting two men. “That was just a good job by Rodriguez,” Jackson said. “Sometimes you have to give the opposing pitcher the headline. He came out and pitched well, kept a great team off balance. His record shows the stuff he has, he has a good sense of what he’s doing out there.” 1 Jones saw Rodriguez pitch in Triple-A early this season and was impressed. “He’s super-confident,” Jones said. “He throws strikes. He’s one of those guys, when he’s on the mound he feels like he can get every hitter out. We feed off it.” In a similar vein, Jackson hadn’t given up more than two runs in a start with Oakland before Friday. The Giants got their first in the fourth. Andrew McCutchen provided the first hit off Jackson, a one-out double, and, with two outs, Buster Posey, fresh off a cortisone shot Sunday for his sore right hip, swatted an RBI single to center. Posey said he definitely felt better after the shot. Sandoval’s homer to right was the third and final run off Jackson, who had allowed just two homers in his first four outings. “If we score more runs, we’re talking about what a good game he pitched,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “Two mistakes.” Jones’ stay might have begun and ended with Friday’s game, but he gave himself a nice souvenir — his third career homer. Last year, he began his big-league career with 17 hitless at- bats. “I was hoping it hooked,” Jackson said. “But he hit it so hard, by the time it started hooking, it was already off the pole.” McCutchen drove in a run with a sacrifice fly off Yusmeiro Petit in the eighth and he made two stylish sliding catches, robbing Matt Chapman of a hit in the fourth and Jonathan Lucroy of one in the fifth. Giants manager Bruce Bochy said he liked everything about his club’s second-half opener, from Rodriguez’s pitching and the team’s defense to the clutch two-out hitting and two homers (after the Giants had hit just six in July). “It had to be one of our better games,” Bochy said. “We played well in all facets.” Petit, a former Giants reliever, was charged with a second run when Brandon Crawford’s single off Ryan Buchter sent in Steve Duggar. Petit had been unscored upon in his previous five games and 11 innings. The A’s are averaging 3.7 runs at home compared to 5.4 on the road, but Friday’s scoring issues were more to do with the Giants’ pitchers, according to Melvin. “Every one of their guys pitched well, and their starter was terrific,” Melvin said. 2 The A’s dropped the first game of the three-game series at AT&T Park a week earlier but came back to win the next two there. Friday’s game drew 45,606, the A’s first sellout since April 3, 2017. The team is opening Mt. Davis for Saturday night’s game in the hopes of setting an all-time baseball attendance mark at the Coliseum — and all tickets for the Mt. Davis section have been sold out. There were tickets remaining elsewhere as of Friday night, but the A’s believe they’ll have a good shot at surpassing the current record of 55,989, set on June 26, 2004, against the Giants. Oakland’s post-break rotation appears set. Melvin said that, as anticipated, left-hander Brett Anderson will start Monday at Texas and Frankie Montas is likely to go Tuesday. That means that Daniel Mengden will remain at Triple-A Nashville for the time being. “We’ll see where this five goes right now,” Melvin said. “When Mengden’s pitching well, he’s pitched as well as anyone on our staff. My guess is we’ll see him at some point, but I’m not really sure when.” Anderson has a 6.08 ERA, so he could be on a short leash with Mengden in the wings. San Francisco Chronicle Bay Bridge series: The DH debate rekindled Bruce Jenkins As the Giants assemble their designated-hitter strategy for Phase 2 of the Bay Bridge Series at the Oakland Coliseum, the argument is rekindled once again: Is the DH good for the game? It won’t ever disappear entirely, which is a real shame, from this viewpoint. When commissioner Rob Manfred said he favors future expansion and a 32-team structure, it was easy to imagine — and then dismiss as pure fantasy — the elimination of interleague play and authentic baseball throughout. Manfred made another interesting statement, though, more central to the issue. Reponding to a claim by players’ union head Tony Clark that the universal DH is “gaining momentum,” Manfred countered that if the DH is added in the National League, “there’s a brand of baseball that is done. I think there’s going to be some hesitation with respect to that. The most likely outcome remains the status quo.” Cue thunderous applause. 3 The beauty of the current setup is that we have it both ways. The pro-DH crowd gets a steady dose and the National League purists are satisfied. It’s a lively, healthy dialogue, and if things get a little awkward this weekend, or during the World Series, let it ride. So many smart people enjoy the DH, I begin wondering if I’m a complete lunatic. Then we learn that a couple of prominent pitchers, the Astros’ Justin Verlander and the Cardinals’ Adam Wainwright , spoke up for the traditional game during the All-Star break. “It’s just the way baseball is supposed to be played,” said Wainwright. And one of the most revered voices in the game, broadcaster Mike Krukow , had a simple but telling line the other night while watching one of the Giants’ pitchers hit. “The beauty of baseball,” he said, “is being able to swing a bat.” That’s my argument exactly. People don’t take up the game so they can try to field a line drive at close range. Standing on a mound and trying to stay composed? That’s not for everybody. A kid’s first love is with his bat. You can’t go to a sandlot, ramshackle field or conventional diamond without one. And if you do — in the American League or just about everywhere else at the game’s lower levels — you can’t call yourself a ballplayer. Baseball is nine-on-nine, no specialists allowed. You hit and you field, and you run and you throw, and then the judgments come forth. The better athletes can override their weaknesses with strengths — or maybe they’re a one-note talent relegated to the bench. I know this is all Dick-and-Jane stuff, but it always comes back to the basics for me. There has never been a game so magnificently designed as baseball. If somebody gets to crack the starting lineup without holding a bat — sorry, that’s just wrong. A surge of diversity It’s been reported for years that young African American athletes aren’t playing baseball, but perhaps a revival is at hand. Hunter Greene, a Reds prospect, took the mound in last Saturday’s Futures Game and threw a 103 mph pitch. Infielder Ke’Bryan Hayes (Pirates) and outfielder Taylor Trammell (Reds) put on a show. Exceptional African American talent was everywhere that day: pitchers Justus Sheffield (Yankees) and C.D. Pelham (Rangers) and outfielders Buddy Reed (Padres), Kyle Lewis (Mariners) and Jordon Adell (Angels). Marveling at the spectacle, ESPN’s Harold Reynolds suggested that with so many parents talking their kids out of playing football, youth baseball is on the rise. ... That game also provided a pretty good argument for the pitch clock. Everyone’s used to it in the minor leagues. It’s not even an issue. The pitchers work faster, the hitters spend less time dawdling, and the pace is noticeably better. It’s time for the majors to at least experiment with the clock, ideally during next year’s spring training. ... Watch out for the San Diego Padres in the near future. They have stockpiled 10 of the top 100 prospects ranked by mlb.com, including shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. (No. 3) 4 and catcher Francisco Mejia , acquired in the Cleveland trade for reliever Brad Hand . Mejia had a 50-game hitting streak in the minor leagues two years ago, and he’s a switch-hitter.