SF Giants Press Clips Friday, May 19, 2017
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SF Giants Press Clips Friday, May 19, 2017 San Francisco Chronicle After terrible start, have the Giants turned the corner? Henry Schulman At long last, the sun has broken through the fog at 24 Willie Mays Plaza. It took until Mother’s Day, but the Giants finally found a way to play winning baseball. Giants fans could not be blamed if they took winning for granted. Their team had done a lot of it over the past eight seasons. Then came 2017, which started with them blowing a ninth-inning lead on Opening Day and losing at Arizona, a bleak harbinger for the local nine. The first quarter of the season, which the Giants completed Tuesday, looked like the start of an annus horribilis on and off the field for a team that was crowned a dynasty after winning the 2010, 2012 and 2014 World Series. The usual spring optimism turned to disbelief as many of the faithful and others within the game wondered if the Giants’ championship window had slammed shut. The view is a lot crisper now for the Giants, who won five games in a row before their streak was broken Wednesday. As recently as last week, they had the worst record of the 30 major- league teams at 12-24. “We had a six-week stretch that has been, if you combine on the field and off the field, like no other,” Giants President and Chief Executive Officer Larry Baer said. The losses on the field were only part of the misery. 1 The Giants were smacked with a numbing array of injuries. Two starting outfielders, Jarrett Parker and Denard Span, got hurt crashing into walls. Buster Posey, the franchise’s most important position player, suffered a concussion when hit in the helmet by a fastball in his first home at-bat of the season April 10. Worse yet, 2014 World Series hero Madison Bumgarner separated his pitching shoulder and bruised some ribs while riding a dirt bike during an April 20 day off near Denver, which will keep him off the mound until roughly Aug. 1. Bruce Bochy, the manager who guided the Giants to those three titles, needed a minor procedure last month to eliminate an abnormal heart rhythm, the third time since February 2016 he was forced to leave the team briefly to tend to his heart. In a realm that superseded baseball, three women who were part of what the organization calls the “Giants family” died unexpectedly over a 12-day stretch in April. Katy Feeney, a former Major League Baseball official and daughter of onetime Giants general manager Chub Feeney, died in her sleep at 68 on the eve of Opening Day. Mirian Cepeda, the wife of Giants Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda, died at 62 of pneumonia on April 12. The same day, Jennifer Pippin, a sister-in-law of shortstop Brandon Crawford, died of an asthma attack at 38. After news of Pippin’s death spread through AT&T Park, Giants Executive Vice President of Communications Staci Slaughter walked into the dugout shell-shocked and said, “I’m afraid to answer my phone.” Social media buzzed with calls for the Giants to “blow it up,” baseball parlance for a losing team to sell off expensive players and rebuild for the future. Giants officials, noting the vast number of games remaining on the 162-game schedule, have insisted they are not thinking that way. “I cannot say we will never in our lifetime have a year like that, but what I can say is that’s not how we went into the season looking at it, and that’s not how we look at it today,” Baer said 2 Tuesday. “Obviously, this is a challenging stretch. Whether it’s the beginning, the middle or the end of the season, what gives me comfort is falling back on the Giants’ DNA, the DNA of the team, the guys on the field, Bochy and his coaching staff. They’ve had a find-a-way mentality for the better part of a decade.” Some of the “end of an era” talk is fueled by a belief that Bochy, at 62, will tire of losing, retire or move to a less stressful job upstairs to protect his heart, a notion that he dismisses out of hand. His most serious ailment emerged in February 2016, in the first days of spring training, when he had two stents inserted into a blocked artery. Twice since, including last month, Bochy was treated for an arrhythmia, a condition considered more a nuisance than a threat to his long- term health. Bochy increasingly is getting more annoyed with questions about his heart and any insinuation that his health or the team’s record has diminished his desire to run the team. “I’m not talking about that,” he said emphatically during an interview last week. “I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m here. I’m ready to go. There’s fire here. I wouldn’t stay if I didn’t think we could win another championship.” Injuries have taken a toll, but even the players who remained healthy underperformed over the first six weeks, especially for a team with a payroll approaching $205 million, about the fifth- highest in baseball. Fans also have criticized the front office for not spending more to acquire a left fielder to replace Angel Pagan, who left as a free agent. After committing $470 million since the end of the 2015 season on long-term contracts for pitchers Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija, the center fielder Span, new closer Mark Melancon, 3 and extensions for infielders Brandon Crawford and Brandon Belt, the Giants decided to hand left field this year to an inexpensive homegrown player, Parker, and a journeyman who had not played in the majors since 2013, Chris Marrero. After Parker broke his collarbone crashing into the left-field wall in the 13th game of the season, and Span sprained his shoulder in the same manner a week later, the Giants threw a carousel of journeymen into the outfield, which continues to rank last among the 30 big-league teams in offensive production. Just when it seemed the Giants might not find a way to stop their free fall, they got a jolt of production and youthful exuberance from 21-year-old infielder Christian Arroyo, their top offensive prospect, whom they promoted from Triple-A on April 24. The Giants also benefited from a power resurgence from Posey, which began during a series in New York on the last trip, and the return of Span and Crawford from the disabled list. On Friday night — actually Saturday morning — Posey homered to end a 17-inning game. The Giants also won the next four before losing to the Dodgers on Wednesday. Notwithstanding the Bumgarner injury, the Giants are as healthy as they have been in a while as they open a three-game series in St. Louis on Friday night. “Now, there are definitely no excuses,” second baseman Joe Panik said. “With the talent in this clubhouse, we definitely should be playing better baseball. It doesn’t mean at the end of September we’re going to be where we are now. I don’t think anybody in this clubhouse believes that.” Even with their recent spate of winning, the Giants are 17-25 and a long shot to reach the playoffs. No team since the 1989 Toronto Blue Jays has reached the playoffs after losing 24 of its first 36 games. Bochy is the last person who cares about a statistic like that. 4 “We can make this a great story,” he said. “This is our decision how we want this to go. I hope we look at it that way.” San Francisco Chronicle Giants’ Christian Arroyo dealing with first major slump Henry Schulman If Christian Arroyo were any other 21-year-old, the Giants might be tempted to send him back to Triple-A amid a 3-for-24 slump to regain his stroke in a less pressurized environment and prevent his dauber from getting down. Because Arroyo is Arroyo, he is staying where he is, enjoying the confidence of a staff that sees a mature rookie who simply needs to adjust at the plate, as all hitters do. “He’s a quick learner,” batting coach Hensley Meulens said. “Hopefully, it’s not a long struggle.” When Arroyo arrived, he proved he could turn on inside fastballs, so right-handed pitchers have been throwing everything on the outside corner or outside, period. Meulens is getting Arroyo to move closer to the plate so he can reach those pitches. Arroyo’s mental state is not an issue. He proved that Tuesday night when he played second base for the first time in the majors and made several good plays, including a throw home to nail Justin Turner . Arroyo is “doing fine,” Meulens said. “He’s going through that first rough patch. We’ve basically got to keep things simple for him. He understands that he’s learning and he understands that he’s got to make some kind of adjustments to produce. He did in his last at-bat. He got a base hit.” That was Tuesday night. On Wednesday, he took an 0-for-4 but had a good third at-bat against Clayton Kershaw and lined out. Closer back: Mark Melancon was throwing in the bullpen in the ninth inning with the Giants down 6-0. It was not a burst of Giants optimism. Melancon had not thrown since Monday and was going to get in his work one way or the other after he was activated from the disabled list before the game.