Middle relievers give Giants room to deal

Young arms give chance to deal

Andrew Baggarly - MercuryNews

The trade market might be materializing a little earlier than normal this year and the Giants are actively shopping several players, according to sources.

But not the names you'd expect.

The Giants have informed other clubs that relievers Tyler Walker, Jack Taschner and Vinnie Chulk are available in fair-value deals. The club also is soliciting offers for Erick Threets and Brad Hennessey, who is starting for Triple-A Fresno.

Closer Brian Wilson is not among the players the Giants are keen on moving.

The sudden motivation to deal relief pitching is twofold: several contenders are in bullpen crisis mode, and the Giants believe they have several younger relievers who are emerging or on the cusp of doing so.

Left-hander Alex Hinshaw is chief among that group. Entering Thursday, he had retired 13 of 14 batters - nine by strikeout - over his six major league appearances.

Right-hander Billy Sadler has impressed since joining the club and right-hander Merkin Valdez is viewed as a prime setup man once he returns from the disabled list. Sergio Romo, Kelvin Pichardo and Osiris Matos are all pitching well for Double-A Connecticut, with Matos posting a 1.37 ERA in 18 games.

The Giants bullpen has regressed in May after starting the season on a collective hot streak. Entering Thursday's game, Giants relievers had combined for a 4.42 ERA, 28th out of 30 major league clubs.

• Hinshaw still can't believe he's in the major leagues, though he'll barely miss fulfilling one of his dreams this weekend when the San Diego Padres visit AT&T Park.

Hinshaw was a high school teammate of pitcher Justin Germano, whom the Padres designated for assignment last week.

"We always dreamed of playing against each other in the major leagues," Hinshaw said.

Hinshaw actually has Germano to thank for making it. He said he was playing center field for Claremont High in Southern California when a scout who went to watch Germano suggested to coaches that they give Hinshaw a tryout on the mound.

"They did and it all worked out," Hinshaw said.

Not before Tommy John surgery in 2002, though. If not for his elbow, Hinshaw might have signed with Giants - the club drafted him three times - but the injury proved to be another good twist of fate. Hinshaw ended up at San Diego State playing for coach Tony Gwynn.

"He's my childhood idol," Hinshaw said. "It was the coolest experience."

Giants turn triple play in eighth but lose to Padres in 13

CBSSports.com/Associated Press (AP)

The San Francisco Giants turned a triple play in a key late-game situation, and then it was all for naught.

Keiichi Yabu got San Diego's Kevin Kouzmanoff to ground into a triple play on his only pitch in the eighth inning but Khalil Greene drew a bases-loaded walk to force in the go-ahead run in the 13th, leading the Padres to a 7-3 victory over the Giants.

"So many good things happened tonight," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. "That's a tough one to lose."

Billy Sadler (0-1) gave up a one-out walk to Tadahito Iguchi and Brian Giles' double put runners on second and third in the 13th. After intentionally walking Adrian Gonzalez and retiring Kouzmanoff, Greene walked with the bases loaded for the first time in two years to score Iguchi.

Sadler (0-1) hit Michael Barrett with a pitch to force in another run, and Vinnie Chulk surrendered pinch-hitter Justin Huber's two-run single to make it 7-3.
Cha Seung Baek (1-0) struck out the side in the 12th, and Trevor Hoffman finished in the non-save situation.

Yabu entered the game in the eighth with runners on first and second and got Kouzmanoff to hit the first pitch for the Giants' first triple play since June 14, 1999.

"I was thinking groundball and double play, then we turned the triple play," Yabu said. "Unbelievable. I had never seen one. We usually see triple plays where they catch a line drive. It's the first time I saw a groundball triple play."

Third baseman Jose Castillo fielded the hard grounder near the bag and retired Giles on the forceout, then relayed to second baseman Ray Durham to get Gonzalez. Durham then fired the ball to first baseman John Bowker for the third out.

"When he hit it, I was thinking he would touch third and throw to second," Bowker said. "As he threw to second, I said, 'Wait a minute, I think there's time to throw to first. We got him by a half step."

The crowd of 37,178 jumped to its feet for a long ovation. The Padres hit into their first triple play since May 5, 2005, versus St. Louis.

"I hit it hard right at him," said Kouzmanoff, who wasn't surprised to see the play turned. "It's definitely something I don't want to be a part of but that's the way it goes."

The Giants hadn't turned a triple play at home since Oct. 3, 1980, against San Diego at Candlestick Park. This was the first one for San Francisco at its nine-year-old waterfront ballpark and the sixth total in the city by either team -- four at Candlestick and one at Seals Stadium. The Giants have turned seven triple plays since moving West in 1958.

Cleveland's Asdrubal Cabrera turned an unassisted triple play for Cleveland on May 12.

Yabu struck out one in three perfect innings and became the second Japanese pitcher to take part in a triple play along with Hideo Nomo in 1996 -- to which Yabu said, "Oh really? No. 2? That's good."

"When it was hit, I thought no but then I saw the quickness to the bag and then I saw the first relay and I thought, 'Yeah, it could happen,"' Padres manager Bud Black said. "When the ball was in flight to second I thought it could happen. Didn't want it to. It was bang-bang."

Greg Maddux and Matt Cain faced off for the third time already this season and sixth time overall. Maddux struck out five to stretch his unbeaten run against San Francisco to more than five years and Iguchi hit a two-run triple in the third for the Padres, who have won four of five.

This marked the sixth extra-innings game for San Diego, which has played 22 innings, 18 innings, three 13-inning contests and 11 innings. The Padres have won their last three.

Iguchi's second triple of the year in the third inning took a crazy bounce off the brick facade in right-center, then Gonzalez followed with a double to put the Padres up 3-1.

Bowker hit a tying RBI single in the seventh that made it 3-3. Randy Winn hit a sacrifice fly in the first inning to give the Giants a quick lead, then Aaron Rowand singled in a run in the fourth. San Francisco lost a tough one after sweeping Arizona in Phoenix.

Maddux has three straight no-decisions and is winless in four starts since beating Colorado on May 10. He allowed two runs and five hits in six innings and didn't surrender a walk for the fifth time in his 12 starts this year.

Mad Dog hasn't lost to the Giants in 12 starts since a defeat on May 9, 2003. He also won his 300th game in San Francisco on Aug. 7, 2004.

Cain's winless stretch against the Padres reached nine starts, with him going 0-4 during that span.

Cain stopped a scary line drive by Giles just above his groin area. Assistant athletic trainer Mark Gruesbeck and manager Bruce Bochy hustled to the mound to check on Cain, who threw a few pitches and stayed in the game. He still made an out on the play.

Notes
Padres ace Jake Peavy, last year's NL Cy Young Award winner who is on the DL with a swollen right elbow, played long toss and the team is hopeful he can throw off a mound Sunday. By next week, he could have a simulated game or head out for a rehab outing.

Giants INF Rich Aurilia was sidelined for the second straight day still waiting to pass a kidney stone.

GIANTS Sweep Snakes

A Winn-Winn deal for Giants

Bruce Jenkins - San Francisco Chronicle

The Giants were playing it cool, but rookie Emmanuel Burriss allowed himself a leaping high-five. The smiling, hatless Omar Vizquel made the rounds with his vigorous handshakes while manager Bruce Bochy, the slowest-moving man in America, made a satisfying walk back to the dugout.

The Giants had gathered outside their dugout to celebrate a three-game sweep of the Arizona Diamondbacks, capped by a 4-3 thriller Thursday night. They had found definition to a season that may yet go sour, but for the moment felt rich and rewarding. They had Randy Winn to thank, more than anyone, but they'd been in this thing together.

There was no better word than "shocking" for Winn's game-winning home run, an opposite-field shot to left against right-handed reliever Chad Qualls in the top of the ninth. Not that it was so surprising to Winn, who already had homered off Randy Johnson in the game, but the Chase Field patrons have grown accustomed to happy endings this year. To lose a third straight to the Giants, that way, tested the limits of anyone's imagination.

Winn wasn't looking to go deep, saying Qualls is "a pure sinkerball guy. He keeps it down and you can't be looking for a home run off a guy like him. That ball just happened to be up."

Heading back to San Francisco, where they open a three-game series against San Diego tonight, the Giants probably felt as if they'd left a few body parts behind. Rich Aurilia was hospitalized with a kidney stone Thursday afternoon and didn't rejoin the team until late in the game. Aaron Rowand took a Qualls fastball off his left hand in the ninth inning, and while he indicated it was nothing beyond excessive swelling, he will have X-rays today.

Rowand made a play in the fourth inning, deep in left-center field, that typified the Giants' play in the series. Bothered all season by sore ribs, Rowand had some questions in his mind as he made an all-out dive to snag Stephen Drew's long drive off Barry Zito.

"I've been waiting for an opportunity to test myself," Rowand said. "The ribs have been feeling better, but I wasn't sure how it was going to feel. It was good. Good sign."

Zito's performance was encouraging, as well, although he stood to take a 3-2 loss until Fred Lewis drew a bases-loaded walk off reliever Tony Peña in the eighth. Mostly sharp with the curveball and hitting 86 mph (a decent mark for him) on the fastball, Zito allowed six hits over six innings, saying, "I wasn't worrying about anything but the moment. I had good movement on the two-seamer, and I was aggressive, getting ahead of the count."

The team, though, was foremost on Zito's mind. This was a night when Johnson struck out nine Giants, landing him squarely on 4,672 for his career and tied for second place with Roger Clemens on the all-time list. On the strength of Winn's fourth-inning homer and an RBI single by Vizquel, the Giants held their ground against the formidable Johnson.

"This was just a great team series," Rowand said. "Everybody contributed in some way. The way we went about our business was a real momentum builder. A confidence builder, too."

"We just kept fighting to the end," Zito said. "That's what good teams do. We're starting to have some fun out there."

That applied to everyone but Aurilia, who still hadn't passed his kidney stone after the game and was preparing to board the team flight. No one escapes the pain of such an experience, but he was likely to crack a smile or two. The Giants' postgame mood was highly contagious.

Schierholtz swinging a big bat at Fresno

Outfielder hits for cycle

Andrew Baggarly - MercuryNews

When Nate Schierholtz hit for the cycle Monday night at Triple-A Fresno, his bat sure looked ready for the major leagues.

Actually, it's already there. Last week, infielder Travis Denker arrived from Fresno with one of Schierholtz's Louisville Slugger models in his bat bag.

It might be awhile before Schierholtz gets to swing his own bat in a major league game, though. Giants Manager Bruce Bochy doesn't want Schierholtz to fill a reserve role, and he has no plans to disrupt a starting outfield of Fred Lewis, Randy Winn and Aaron Rowand.

"It's good for his development to be there," Bochy said. "We still feel it's important that Nate gets his three or four at-bats every day. Eventually, we'll find a place for him."

Bochy talked to Fresno Manager Dan Rohn on Tuesday and asked him to pass along congratulations to Schierholtz, who has a .605 slugging percentage in May and was hitting .304 overall.

No wonder Denker wanted to borrow one of Schierholtz's bats. He didn't use that model for his first major league hit, though. It was a discarded demo model that Denker tried out on a whim.

It died a hero, as players like to say.

"It hit the label and cracked," Denker said. "Good thing I got enough of it."

• After a weekend in Miami when seemingly all of Caracas, Venezuela, made the trip to get a quote or a sound bite, Omar Vizquel emerged with something more than the all-time record for games played at shortstop When Nate Schierholtz hit for the cycle Monday night at Triple-A Fresno, his bat sure looked ready for the major leagues.

Actually, it's already there. Last week, infielder Travis Denker arrived from Fresno with one of Schierholtz's Louisville Slugger models in his bat bag.

It might be awhile before Schierholtz gets to swing his own bat in a major league game, though. Giants Manager Bruce Bochy doesn't want Schierholtz to fill a reserve role, and he has no plans to disrupt a starting outfield of Fred Lewis, Randy Winn and Aaron Rowand.

"It's good for his development to be there," Bochy said. "We still feel it's important that Nate gets his three or four at-bats every day. Eventually, we'll find a place for him."

Bochy talked to Fresno Manager Dan Rohn on Tuesday and asked him to pass along congratulations to Schierholtz, who has a .605 slugging percentage in May and was hitting .304 overall.

No wonder Denker wanted to borrow one of Schierholtz's bats. He didn't use that model for his first major league hit, though. It was a discarded demo model that Denker tried out on a whim.

It died a hero, as players like to say.

"It hit the label and cracked," Denker said. "Good thing I got enough of it."

• After a weekend in Miami when seemingly all of Caracas, Venezuela, made the trip to get a quote or a sound bite, Omar Vizquel emerged with something more than the all-time record for games played at shortstopWhen Nate Schierholtz hit for the cycle Monday night at Triple-A Fresno, his bat sure looked ready for the major leagues.

Actually, it's already there. Last week, infielder Travis Denker arrived from Fresno with one of Schierholtz's Louisville Slugger models in his bat bag.

It might be awhile before Schierholtz gets to swing his own bat in a major league game, though. Giants Manager Bruce Bochy doesn't want Schierholtz to fill a reserve role, and he has no plans to disrupt a starting outfield of Fred Lewis, Randy Winn and Aaron Rowand.

"It's good for his development to be there," Bochy said. "We still feel it's important that Nate gets his three or four at-bats every day. Eventually, we'll find a place for him."

Bochy talked to Fresno Manager Dan Rohn on Tuesday and asked him to pass along congratulations to Schierholtz, who has a .605 slugging percentage in May and was hitting .304 overall.

No wonder Denker wanted to borrow one of Schierholtz's bats. He didn't use that model for his first major league hit, though. It was a discarded demo model that Denker tried out on a whim.

It died a hero, as players like to say.

"It hit the label and cracked," Denker said. "Good thing I got enough of it."

• After a weekend in Miami when seemingly all of Caracas, Venezuela, made the trip to get a quote or a sound bite, Omar Vizquel emerged with something more than the all-time record for games played at shortstop A new appreciation for Barry Bonds.

"That's one of the things I admire about him, being able to block all that out and go on," Vizquel said. "I just know a couple days of people asking me things, that's overwhelming. It's hard to concentrate when you have a lot of people around.

"So I can't imagine what a Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens has to deal with. That's what people don't understand. Only a few people experience moments like that, and I don't put myself in that position at all. My record was not a humongous thing like those guys."

Vizquel can expect another glut of interview requests next month, when the Giants play at Cleveland on June 24-26. It will be Vizquel's first trip to Jacobs Field since the Indians allowed him to depart as a free agent after the 2004 season.

"That's another moment I feel nervous about," said Vizquel, who played 11 seasons in Cleveland and won eight of his 11 Gold Gloves in an Indians uniform.

• Right-hander Kevin Correia (strained left rib cage muscle) threw two innings in an extended spring game at Scottsdale and will start for Class A San Jose on Friday. Correia is expected to throw four innings. If all goes well at San Jose, Correia would make another start for Triple-A Fresno and could rejoin the Giants' rotation after that.

DOMINANT IN THE DESERT

Combination of youth, age delivers again against D'backs

Bruce Jenkins - San Francisco Chronicle

There's only one real way to measure the National League West, the traditional way, and that would be a decisive vote for first-place Arizona.

If you're talking about productivity against the weight of expectations, the Giants just might rank second, especially after their 11-3 thrashing of the Diamondbacks Wednesday night at Chase Field. You won't hear the Giants bragging about their 22-31 record, but a lot of other people in this division don't feel nearly as good about themselves.

The Dodgers, 3 1/2 games behind Arizona, are a .500 team that looks the part - gravely disappointing to the many observers who rated them so highly this spring. The third-place Giants have a two-game lead over the bafflingly weak Rockies, who went to the World Series last year, and a 2 1/2-game edge over a San Diego team losing more of its audience with every depressing loss.

Overstatement is risky business for the Giants, but they have been nothing short of dominant in the first two games of this series. In the wake of Tim Lincecum's victory Tuesday night, sparked by titanic homers off the bats of Bengie Molina and Jose Castillo, the Giants came back with their highest-scoring game of the year and a strong performance by left-hander Jonathan Sanchez.

It seemed to be a night primed for emotion in Arizona, with pitcher Doug Davis making his first home appearance after undergoing thyroid surgery. Then again, they don't do emotion terribly well around here. Chase Field is essentially a gigantic airplane hangar, roughly the size of Mars, housing a laid-back crowd rarely given to outbursts of any kind.

Davis, a Bay Area man all the way (Northgate High in Walnut Creek, then Diablo Valley College and City College of San Francisco), fits the scene appropriately with his deliberate, never-too-bothered style. It's a formula that generally works for him, but he caught the Giants in a hot streak - and Sanchez, who took a shutout into the sixth, had infinitely better command.

"He's just really growing as a pitcher," manager Bruce Bochy said. "He had it all going tonight, and aside from the command, he was very composed. It's great to see how poised he has become."

Some of the Giants' fans might be frustrated over the game plan to play so many veterans, but it has been a worthy tonic in Arizona. Ray Durham opened the scoring with a hooking, line-drive homer down the left-field line in the second. Molina, continuing to be the hottest hitter in either league, went 3-for-4 with two more RBIs. Aaron Rowand delivered a couple of run-scoring singles, and Durham came back with a roaring, three-run double in the sixth.

It wasn't all about the oldsters, though. With Omar Vizquel getting a breather, Emmanuel Burris started at shortstop and drilled a two-run single. There was also the noticeably steady rise of Fred Lewis, who seems to look more like a ballplayer by the day.

Bochy talked before the game about Lewis' ongoing baseball education, saying, "This is a guy who played football in college and is sort of learning along the way. I think he's really been impressive - hitting, defensively, on the bases. He's just getting better and better."

Lewis' night featured an opposite-field single, three walks and his ninth stolen base, and unless the Giants swing a deal involving Randy Winn, there's no sense yearning for outfield prospect Nate Schierholtz, who hit for the cycle in Fresno's game at Las Vegas on Monday night and raised his average over .300. The Giants want Schierholtz playing every day, and their outfield is rock-solid, at least for the moment, with Lewis, Rowand and Winn.

As for the standings, you wouldn't put 22-31 in the "solid" category. Sometimes these things are relative, though. If Barry Zito beats Randy Johnson tonight, the Giants will stand in defiance of every critic.

The power of 10

The Giants scored double digits Wednesday for the first time this year. The last time they scored 10 or more runs was in the 11-2 win over the Dodgers in the last game of last season. That leaves only the Royals without a game of 10 or more runs this year (Kansas City has scored nine four times).

Neukom is at home with Giants

The Bay Area-raised attorney will take over the team in October.

Janie McCauley - Associated Press

Bill Neukom has run a half-dozen marathons, rides horses, is fresh off hip replacement surgery and has a penchant for bow ties.

He is best known for more than two decades of work as a Microsoft attorney and as the current president of the American Bar Association. That will change in October, when Neukom, 66, takes over from Peter Magowan as the Giants' controlling owner.

"This is a full-time job," said Neukom, who has fluffy white hair and stands 6-foot-4. "I'm not doing this any way but the way I know how to do this, which is full out."

That means he soon will begin house hunting in San Francisco because he plans to be accessible, visible and not far from the team's waterfront ballpark. He soon will be watching more games in San Francisco than he does as a Seattle Mariners season-ticket holder.

Neukom grew up in San Mateo, with then-San Francisco Seals owner Charlie Graham as a neighbor. Neukom joined the Giants' ownership group in 1995 and became a general partner in 2003.

His Microsoft stake was worth an estimated $107 million when he left the company in 2001. Currently, he's a partner in the Seattle office of the law firm Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis.

"I can't think of a better person to hand the reins off to than Bill," Magowan said. "I have the highest respect for him."

Magowan became the Giants' managing general partner in 1993. He kept major-league baseball in San Francisco, built a new ballpark and brought Barry Bonds to town before parting ways with the home run king after 15 seasons.

In 2002, after the Giants lost the World Series to the wild-card Angels, Magowan first mentioned to Neukom the idea of him one day running the Giants.

"I kept it in sort of the back of my mind. I think he did, too," Neukom said. "People tend to be philosophical about their work when they get to a certain stage in their careers."

When Magowan revisited the idea with Neukom last winter, things quickly progressed, and the ownership group approved the change.
Major League Baseball owners must ratify the move, too. That likely will happen in August.

"I couldn't resist it, just because I'm such a baseball fan," said Neukom, who played basketball and ran when his body used to allow it but now sticks to golf and riding horses. "I've been part of the investor group long enough to have some sense of what it does. The notion that the other investors would support me, want me to do it – it was hard to turn away from that."

Larry Baer will remain the top executive to Neukom, as he has been for Magowan. Baer will jump from executive vice president to team president Oct. 1. "I think we have a transition that, in many ways, will be seamless," Baer said.

That's how Neukom wants it. He's not ready to make major changes, but he hasn't said he won't, either. "They wouldn't have supported this transition if they thought we were going to go in a significantly different direction," he said.

Challenges are ahead, including further fallout from the Mitchell report and getting back to winning and filling the stands.

Magowan was mentioned in the Mitchell report that came out in December. He then met with baseball Commissioner Bud Selig during spring training about whether members of the Giants' front office knew players were allegedly using steroids and performance-enhancing drugs.

The Giants haven't reached the playoffs since 2003 and are rebuilding with young players. Attendance also is down.

"I have some notions, but it's a little early to talk about that. The rest of the season is Peter's," Neukom said. "We're also being candid when we say this is kind of a family enterprise.

"We've all been together for a long time, for the most part. They're all investors because they love baseball and we want to have a successful team here. An awful lot of what's happening will continue to happen."

It's not as if Neukom hasn't faced pressure before. He worked as the top counsel for Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates.

"That's why he'll be excellent at it – he's done so many things," said Mariners president Chuck Armstrong, who met Neukom in the fall of 1964 while they attended Stanford Law School. "He's very thoughtful. He's a good listener; he puts himself in the position of other people and understands why they think the way they do. He's an information gatherer.

"He's very smart, a quick study, and he's been a lifelong baseball fan. I don't think the learning curve will be very steep."

Giants blazing in Phoenix

Molina, Lincecum overpowering in defeat of Diamondbacks

Bruce Jenkins - San Francisco Chronicle

The Giants tend to scratch out their wins, usually falling somewhere short of the sublime, but their Tuesday night series opener was something different. This 6-3 victory over the Diamondbacks was forged on sheer power.

It must have been refreshing for manager Bruce Bochy to watch Bengie Molina crush a three-run homer, followed shortly by Jose Castillo's 430-foot solo shot to deep center, both off respectable breaking pitches from Dan Haren. It was downright fascinating to watch Tim Lincecum (7-1, 2.33 ERA) at his best against a first-place team. In all, it was a win as satisfying as the Arizona night, so wondrously balmy that the conservative Chase Field officials actually opened the roof.

Lincecum was 118 pitches into the game, with one out in the eighth, when a pair of singles ended his night. He had left his mark, and in manager Bruce Bochy's view, "It was just nice to come in here, against a good ballclub, and get that kind of pitching. Tim is very special, I think. One of the better pitchers in the game."
As for Molina, who learned upon arriving at the park that he had been named the National League's Player of the Week, some 23,000 fans were treated to the sight of a hitter performing out of his mind. Molina already had lined a single to center when he came to the plate in the third inning, two men on in a scoreless tie, about to put a massive exclamation point on a mind-bending streak.

Molina had reached that dreamy stage where every pitch looks good, and he went after Haren with a thirst, swinging ferociously at three low-and-away pitches (two fouls, swing and a miss). He would have attacked the fourth if it hadn't bounced a foot in front of the plate. Then he got another low curveball, a pretty strong effort from Haren, and one-armed a deep drive to left-center.

It looked somewhat ordinary off the bat until it landed comfortably in the seats for a 3-0 lead. Molina had not only reached .640 (16-for-25) in his stirring run, he was now 8-for-8 with runners in scoring position dating back to the May 18 finale of the Giants' homestand.

Typically humble - a full career in the big leagues will do that to a man - Molina said, "I don't even think about it like that. This game's too tough. If it happens, obviously it's great. But every game's like do-or-die for us, man. That's how we have to look at it."

The Diamondbacks knew they were up against vintage Lincecum when they witnessed his matchups against Justin Upton, the 20-year-old sensation who soon might be the most complete outfielder in the National League. Twice - in the second inning, and again in the sixth - Upton whiffed embarrassingly on the Lincecum changeup. This occasionally is described as Lincecum's "third-best pitch," but on nights like this, it ranks with the best pitches, period, in all of baseball. It has reached the point where hitters know it's coming on two strikes, yet it tends to arrive even better than advertised.

"Just awesome, that's what he was," Molina said. "He's going to be a superstar for a long time."

Things got a bit testy in the eighth, when Lincecum surrendered two singles and gave way to Tyler Walker, but Walker's strike-three fastball to Upton was the inning's defining moment. Why, this win was so convincing, Brian Wilson didn't have a whiff of trouble in the ninth. He ended this game the way Lincecum ended the seventh, with a batter holding nothing but shattered wood. It was the Diamondbacks' night to be humbled.

Hot hitter
Bengie Molina has hit .640 in his last six games, including two homers and five doubles.

Vizquel sets record, but Giants lose 2 games to Marlins

Daniel Brown - MercuryNews

Let's play 2,584!

Omar Vizquel broke a longevity record in appropriately grueling fashion Sunday, starting both ends of the Giants' emotionally and physically draining doubleheader sweep at the hands of the Florida Marlins.

Vizquel's celebration was muted by the scores: The Giants lost 8-6 in the first game and 5-4 in the second, the latter defeat coming on Dan Uggla's bases-loaded, tiebreaking single with two out in the ninth.

By appearing in both games, Vizquel set the record for most games played at shortstop - a mark held by Luis Aparicio, who capped his career starting both ends of a doubleheader at Fenway Park on Sept. 28, 1973.

"It's sad because it doesn't really let you have as much fun as you want," Vizquel, 41, said in an otherwise silent clubhouse. "It was a pretty big moment for me. Very emotional. But I'm not going to enjoy this very much. . . . Maybe next week."

Instead, Uggla and the Marlins did the celebrating. The second baseman hit his major-league-leading 16th home run (a two-run shot) for the go-ahead runs in Game 1 before getting mobbed for his heroics in Game 2.

His final swing concluded a day that took 7 hours, 17 minutes from the first pitch to the last (including a 29-minute rain delay).

The Giants wasted not only Vizquel's milestone moment, but also an epic afternoon from Bengie Molina, who went 6 for 7 with four doubles and four RBIs and threw out Hanley Ramirez trying to steal. In the three-game series, the catcher went 9 for 12 and has raised his average to .327.

"He did everything today," Manager Bruce Bochy said of Molina.

Still, it wasn't enough, as the Giants were undone by more ill-timed mistakes in suffering their first doubleheader sweep since 1996.

With the Giants leading 5-3 in the third inning of Game 1, for example, starter Patrick Misch walked in one run, then balked home another; suddenly it was 5-5 without a Marlins hitter needing to move a muscle.

When they did swing, it was worse. Misch gave up three home runs and seven earned runs in just 4 1/3 innings. He has yet to win any of his 25 major league appearances, including nine starts.

"I really wasn't in control of too many pitches," Misch said. "It all kind of ballooned on me."

The Giants got a better start in Game 2, but - and this should sound familiar - they wasted Matt Cain's solid performance. (He has won only twice in 11 starts.)
This time, the right-hander gave up two runs over six innings and left leading 4-2. But relievers Keiichi Yabu, Jack Taschner, Tyler Walker and Brian Wilson failed to execute the jobs they were summoned to do.

Last in line was Wilson, who came in with Wes Helms at second and the score 4-4. The crushing mistake was a two-out walk to light-hitting Alfredo Amezaga to load the bases and set the stage for lava-hot Uggla.

"Walks hurt us," Bochy said. "They're killing us."

The twin losses resulted in a bittersweet afternoon for Vizquel. To his surprise, the Giants let him take his position virtually alone before the bottom of the sixth, after the game had become official. As the scoreboard flashed a congratulatory message, the crowd of 14,674 cheered - as did players from both teams.

"I felt pretty proud, pretty emotional at that moment," Vizquel said.

The Hall of Fame requested a few mementos from the record-breaking day. Aparicio will attend the Giants' return to San Francisco on Friday to salute Vizquel in person.

Still, even Vizquel, the 11-time Gold Glover, stumbled as he climbed the last rungs of the ladder. He went 0 for 11 in the series.

In Game 1, he committed his first error of the season.

An ace at Augusta

Daniel Brown - MercuryNews

As the Giants complete preparations for the June 5 draft, it's worth noting that last year's top pick is doing just fine.

Left-hander Madison Bumgarner, the 10th overall selection in 2007, has allowed only one earned run over his past 33 2/3 innings for Class-A Augusta.

Overall, he is 5-2 with a 2.18 ERA while striking out 9.9 batters per nine innings.
"Anytime you're the first player taken in the organization, there are obviously going to be some expectations with that," Manager Andy Skeels told the Augusta Chronicle over the weekend. "He has handled it better than we could have hoped for."

Taken out of South Caldwell (N.C.) High, Bumgarner has looked dominating over 45 1/3 innings with 50 strikeouts against nine walks. Opponents are batting .222 against him.

The 6-foot-4 left-hander threw a career-high 6 2/3 innings against Charleston on Saturday without allowing a runner past first base.

The Giants have the fifth overall pick this year, their highest spot since taking Jason Grilli fourth in 1997.

• Second baseman Travis Denker, 22, got his first major league start in Game 1 on Sunday. He hit a leadoff double against Mark Hendrickson in the fourth inning for his first hit. But he also bobbled Wes Helms' potential double-play ball in the third inning, opening the door for a run that tied the score 5-5.Manager Bruce Bochy spoke highly of the rookie's approach at the plate. He likes Denker's aggressiveness and knowledge of the strike zone.

"He looks hitter-ish up there," Bochy said.

Denker broke into the lineup on the anniversary of another grand entrance. On May 25, 1951, Willie Mays made his major league debut, at age 20, in an 8-5 victory at Philadelphia. Mays went hitless in five at-bats but eventually got the hang of things.

• Florida Marlins second baseman Dan Uggla hit his 16th home run to tie Houston's Lance Berkman for the major league lead. (The Giants had the misfortune of running into both hot hitters this month.)

"You don't really think too much about it," Uggla said of his binge. "I have the potential to hit some runs, but I don't put a number or a goal on it. You just roll with it."

• Game 1 was interrupted 29 minutes by rain, an unwelcome sight after a delay of almost three hours led to a postponement a night earlier.

• Today's scheduled day off is well-timed for a bedraggled team coming off an epic work shift in the humidity Sunday.

"I don't think we could have a better time for an off day," Bochy said. "The bullpen is drained."

• Tim Lincecum, who starts the series opener against Arizona on Tuesday, is 1-0 with a 1.32 ERA in two career starts against the Diamondbacks.

Fair or not, Sabean might need to find job elsewhere

Bruce Jenkins - San Francisco Chronicle

We don't really know Bill Neukom, who will take over the Giants' ownership in October, not in a baseball sense. But his admirable track record suggests he's a tough, bottom-line type of guy, and if I were general manager Brian Sabean, I'd be a bit concerned about my job security.

It's conceivable that when the current season shuts down, the Giants will have a reasonably bright outlook for the future. That would require the usual stuff from Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain, solid seasons from Fred Lewis and Brian Wilson, a resurgence from Eugenio Velez and John Bowker, glowing minor-league reports on the likes of Tim Alderson, Nick Noonan and Angel Villalona, perhaps a pleasant surprise or two.

All of that will have been nurtured on Sabean's watch, with high hopes looming for the upcoming amateur draft. But if you're looking at a bottom line, the Giants also will be wrapping up the worst four-year stretch of their 51-year history in San Francisco.

It's not that any youth movement will remind people of the Arizona Diamondbacks, who tower above the Giants in every category but "studly right-handers." Barring a spectacular trade or free-agent signing, there won't be any serious talk of rising above the rubble in 2009. Viewed from the outside, the Giants represent nothing but negativity: steroids, the BALCO investigation, a perjury trial, the Mitchell Report, staying with Barry Bonds too long (that's on Peter Magowan and Larry Baer; don't ever forget it), and most significantly in Sabean's case, a string of ghastly transactions led by Barry Zito.

Nobody remembers Sabean's exceptional work as a rising Yankees executive, or that for seven prosperous years, his only false move in San Francisco was an over-commitment to Marvin Benard. Nobody cares about his masterful fine-tuning as Bonds' prime years led to relentless excitement. That's all yesterday. Today, quite frankly, the Giants are an embarrassment. That has to wear on the investors, many of whom aren't quite ready for the flip side of success.

Which is why I've finally discovered how I feel about Sabean: I think so highly of him, I hope he is somewhere else next year.

You'd have to think there would be interest - from the deeply troubled Yankees and Mets, just for starters. Sure, Sabean turned a blind eye to Bonds at the peak of the steroid era, just as other executives did with Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa and a few hundred others. That doesn't mean it was noble behavior, but it would be hypocrisy to single out Sabean as some type of rogue. He knows the game, better than most. He's the father of four boys, and might have no practical way to leave the Bay Area, but if he were to become available, he'd be the flat-out best choice for any team.

Predictions? Too difficult to say. Signed through 2009, Sabean deserves his two-year, post-Bonds crack at fixing this mess. He might not have that opportunity. But like the radio disc jockey forced to play jazz instead of the polka, he just might warm to the change.

AT LAST, HIS FIRST

THIS TIME, GIANTS GIVE HIM PLENTY OF RUNS IN SUPPORT

Daniel Brown - MercuryNews

Barry Zito finally got a W in a season that had gone straight to L.

The Giants' embattled left-hander beat the Florida Marlins 8-2 on Friday for his first win of the season. In doing so he avoided becoming the first pitcher in franchise history - its 125-year history - to start a season 0-9.

Zito allowed one run and three hits over 6 1/3 innings, his longest outing of the year. There was, however, no champagne celebration. No confetti fell from the ceiling. Zito barely even cracked a smile during his postgame session with reporters. Knowing how misleading those win-loss totals can be, Zito said he was concerned more with the fact the Giants won, not his credit for getting them there.

"You can't win a game on your own as a pitcher, and you can't win a game on your own as a hitter," said the pitcher, now 1-8 with a 5.65 ERA. "It was a big day for all of us."

Indeed, a pitcher does not go winless for as long as Zito had without some bad luck; that streak, too, was a team effort. The Giants never scored more than three runs in his nine previous starts. Six times, they scored one run or fewer while he was in the game.

But that changed against Florida as the Giants' suddenly potent offense produced an episode of "RBI: Miami."

Bengie Molina and Aaron Rowand hit back-to-back home runs off Scott Olsen in the fourth inning, the first time in 2008 that the Giants have hit consecutive long balls. Jose Castillo, waived by the Marlins during spring training, added a solo shot in the eighth to give the Giants three home runs in a game for the first time this season. And Rich Aurilia had two doubles, the second of which drove in a pair of runs to make it 5-1 in the third inning.

Not bad for a team that had given Zito just 2.22 runs per game.

"We don't know the numbers, but trust me, we all know" about the run support, Rowand said.

Zito's first victory came against an unlikely victim. Florida was coming off a three-game sweep of mighty Arizona. In that series, the Marlins overcame three starters - Micah Owings, Brandon Webb and Dan Haren - whose combined record was 19-3.

Zito, meanwhile, was trying to avoid becoming the majors' first pitcher to fall to 0-9 since Detroit's Mike Maroth in 2003.

"We're all happy for Z," Giants Manager Bruce Bochy said. "It's great to get that first one. There's no getting around that."

Zito gave up Dan Uggla's RBI double in the first but did not allow another run. In four starts since returning to the rotation after getting skipped a turn, Zito has a 3.22 ERA. Reflecting on that skipped start, Zito said: "I think that was a good time to take a good, hard look in the mirror and ask what I was going to do about it."

Against the Marlins, Zito threw his 12-to-6 curveball with confidence. He also continued to resurrect a two-seam fastball that he had abandoned back in his days with Oakland at the suggestion of pitching coach Rick Peterson. (Zito said he had been getting into some bad mechanical habits with that pitch.)

Friday, his fastball hit 86 mph on the radar gun, which is fast enough when he has command of his other pitches. Rowand, who faced Zito in the pitcher's American League heyday, went so far as to say, "He threw the ball like I remember him throwing."

As Zito spoke at his locker, Rowand stopped by and gave the pitcher a big hug. Zito said his teammates have supported him, even during all those weeks when he had a 0 in his record.

"Guys that play the game know about struggling," Zito said. "They never get into judging or talking bad about guys. The people who go out on the field every day know about bumps in the road."

Denker to see playing time

Rookie infielder 'made a great first impression' on Bochy

Chris Haft - MLB.com

Infielder Travis Denker became the seventh Giant to join the team after beginning the season in the Minor Leagues. And if Denker is anything like most of the first six -- first baseman John Bowker, infielder Emmanuel Burriss, outfielder Clay Timpner and pitchers Alex Hinshaw, Pat Misch and Billy Sadler -- he'll receive ample playing time, given manager Bruce Bochy's liberal use of his bench and the Giants' eagerness to test their prospects.

"They're going to get an opportunity," Bochy said Wednesday. "We're looking for these younger players."

Denker, who becomes the youngest Giant at age 22, didn't appear to be bound for the Majors when the season began. He hit .184 in 25 games with Double-A Connecticut. Yet, he was promoted to Triple-A Fresno after Burriss was summoned to the Giants in late April and regained his stroke, batting .315 in 17 games.

"Being in 30-degree weather every day doesn't help," Denker said, referring to his Connecticut stint. "I really didn't feel like hitting when I was there."

Denker performed better than his statistics indicated in Spring Training, when he hit .212 in 16 games. So when the Giants decided that struggling utilityman Eugenio Velez needed to go to Triple-A to sharpen his game, they barely hesitated to beckon Denker.

"He made a great first impression," Bochy said.

Denker made his Major League debut in the 10th inning of the Giants' 3-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies, flying out as a pinch-hitter.

Denker already owns a spot in franchise lore as being part of the first trade between the Giants and Dodgers in 22 years. San Francisco acquired him last Aug. 26 as the player-to-be-named-later in the Mark Sweeney deal on Aug. 9.

Vizquel leads Giants to 3-2 victory over Rockies

LEADOFF DOUBLE IN 9TH, SACRIFICE FLY IN 10TH

Andrew Baggarly - MercuryNews

You'll hear all of the requisite trumpet blasts for Omar Vizquel's defensive prowess in the coming days, when the 11-time Gold Glove winner breaks Luis Aparicio's record for games played by a shortstop.

But lest anyone forget, Vizquel also ranks as the game's active hits leader. And even at 41, his bat control and situational skills can make a difference in a game.
They did for the Giants on Wednesday. Vizquel hit a leadoff double in the ninth inning that sparked a tying, two-run rally against Colorado Rockies closer Brian Fuentes. Then Vizquel's sacrifice fly scored Ray Durham with the go-ahead run in the 10th as the Giants rallied for a 3-2 victory at Coors Field.

The Giants were 1-24 when trailing after eight innings and would have fallen to 1-25 if not for an improbable hit from queasy backup catcher Steve Holm. After Bengie Molina's single scored Vizquel, Holm hit a two-out double that plated pinch runner Daniel Ortmeier to tie it.

Holm was supposed to start but began feeling ill after batting practice, wobbled into the clubhouse and lost his breakfast.

"By the fourth or fifth inning, I started to feel hungry," Holm said. "They had me eat a little to see if it would stay down. I had a couple of animal crackers."
Holm didn't toss the cookies. But as the game went to extra innings, he did stop to consider that the Giants didn't have another catcher.

"That's what I was thinking," Holm said. "Don't let this thing go 18 innings."

If it did, Holm would have needed more than a box of Barnum's.

"We had the IV ready," Giants Manager Bruce Bochy said. "He wasn't coming out, no matter what."

That has been Vizquel's credo for 20 seasons. He played his 2,581st game at shortstop, which means he'll tie and pass Aparicio's record of 2,583 this weekend if he plays all three games in the series at Florida.

Miami is the transportation gateway to most of Latin America, and considering the deluge of requests the Giants are receiving from the Venezuelan and other Spanish-speaking media, there could be more reporters than fans at Dolphin Stadium.

Who knows? Maybe Vizquel will emulate Cal Ripken and make a victory trot around the warning track.

"Yeah," Rich Aurilia wisecracked. "He'll slap high fives with all eight people there."

Vizquel has said he needs a resurgent year at the plate to extend his career beyond this season, though he had slumped in recent days. He was in a 1-for-16 slide before hitting a single in the sixth inning. Scouts have noted his bat speed continues to slip.

But Vizquel didn't get 2,609 hits without knowing how to execute.

"Good thing I didn't rest him," Bochy said. "I was thinking about it, but I talked to him and he feels fine."

Hitting coach Carney Lansford said he is ecstatic to have Vizquel back in the lineup.

"Because now we have a chance with our shortstop offensively," Lansford said. "Before, and I love Brian Bocock to death, but he's just overmatched at this level. Offensively, you have to get something out of your shortstop. You can't just be an out every time."

The Giants were doing a fair job of that for seven innings against Rockies right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez.

The last time the Giants faced Jimenez at Coors Field, Barry Bonds made a Colorado resident $376,612 richer - minus auction fees and taxes, of course. Bonds got barely enough of a 99 mph fastball from Jimenez for his 762nd and last major league home run, which stands as the record.

But without Bonds, Jimenez barely allowed the Giants a ball in the air. Grounders, including two double-play bouncers, accounted for 16 of the Giants' 18 outs over the first six innings.

Jonathan Sanchez followed Tim Lincecum's example by keeping the Rockies out of big innings, and the Giants' bullpen kept the deficit manageable.

Brian Wilson, who threw 30 pitches the previous night, grabbed the National League saves lead by recording his 14th in 16 chances. (Houston's Jose Valverde tied him later Wednesday.) He allowed a walk in a scoreless 10th inning.

"If I lead the league at the end of the year, I'll have all off-season to gloat about it," said Wilson, who has a 5.49 ERA. "Right now, there's nothing to gloat about."
With Vizquel, there will be soon.

Velez sent to Fresno to 'get his game back'

Henry Schulman - San Francisco Chronicle

Eugenio Velez is going to Triple-A Fresno, where he can play every day, learn the finer points of baseball and regain his confidence outside of the major-league glare. The Giants optioned Velez after Tuesday night's game and recalled 22-year-old infielder Travis Denker, who was acquired from the Dodgers in the Mark Sweeney deal last year.

"It's a few things" manager Bruce Bochy said in explaining the move. "He's been struggling at the plate. He's getting frustrated with that. It looks like his defense was affected. That, and the pickoffs. It seems like no matter what he did, things didn't go right for him. This is the right thing to do, send him down and get his game back."

The Giants have been in a quandary over Velez. They believe he has tremendous tools and have kept him in the majors despite his struggles because they hoped he could benefit from the instruction and experience.

In an interview last week, general manager Brian Sabean acknowledged that Velez has had a rough go trying to learn and play at the highest level.

"We're realizing that a lot of this is force-fed upon him," Sabean said. "It's obvious he doesn't have major-league playing time and doesn't know how to perform day in and day out offensively or defensively."

Velez, who will play some outfield as well as second base in Fresno, said he was not surprised by the move. Although he looked crestfallen, he said, "If they say I'm going to go down and play every day, that's fine. Right now, I'm too young" not to.

The alternatives at Fresno had been nonroster infielders such as Justin Leone and Ivan Ochoa until the emergence of Denker, who is on the 40-man roster and has hit .315 in 17 games at Fresno since his promotion from Double-A Connecticut. At the same time, Velez has not started a game since May 9, and the Giants thought they were doing him a disservice by keeping him in the majors and sticking him on the bench.

Hinshaw's start: Alex Hinshaw, the 25-year-old left-hander called up to replace the injured Merkin Valdez, has had quite a start to his major-league career. He has struck out four of his first six batters. They include Jim Thome and Todd Helton, two of the best left-handed hitters in the game who deserve to be at least in the conversation about the Hall of Fame.

Hinshaw said the experience "is kind of surreal, because you're facing (possible) Hall of Famers, but you've still got to get ahead and throw strike one. Initially, when you first toe the rubber, it's always a jittery feeling because I only have a limited amount of major-league experience. When it comes down to it, you've still got to make your pitches."

Hinshaw caught Thome looking at a curveball and Helton at a tailing fastball.

Lincecum finds groove, Giants end losing streak

Henry Schulman - San Francisco Chronicle

"Nice day," someone said to Tyler Walker as the Giants came out for stretching.
"New day," Walker responded, and he was right.

The Giants ended their six-game losing streak by beating the Rockies 6-5 Tuesday night, with Tim Lincecum scoring the win and Brian Wilson the teeth-chattering save. Keiichi Yabu and Walker preserved a one-run lead in the seventh and eighth innings after manager Bruce Bochy convened the beleaguered bullpen for a pregame meeting to lift the relievers' spirits and demand that they pitch smarter.

After the Giants scored twice in the ninth to take a 6-3 lead, Wilson allowed a two-out, two-run homer by Clint Barmes. Matt Holliday came within 3 feet of tying the game with a blast off the right-field wall for a double. But after Todd Helton was intentionally walked, putting the potential winning run on board, Wilson struck out Garrett Atkins on a 96 mph cut fastball to slay the losing streak.

"A win is a win is a win is a win," Walker said after the Giants endured a loss and a loss and a loss and a loss and a loss and a loss.

Bochy moved into 50th place all-time with his 1,040th major-league managerial win. They were not all gut-busters like this one. It only seems that way.

"You're hoping to have an easy three-up, three-down" ninth, he said, "but Willie has a way of keeping you on the edge of your seat."

After the home run and the scorching double, Wilson knew what he had to do.

"It's taking a deep breath, realizing what's at stake here and making pitches," he said. The relievers have not been making key pitches lately, which is why Bochy summoned them into his office before batting practice.

"This is a good bullpen, but we're making too many mistakes we shouldn't be making with the arms we have," Bochy said. "We need to be smarter with pitch selection and how we attack hitters. I have all the confidence in the world in this bullpen. They're going to be vital with all the close games we play. We've got to make sure we stay positive."

Bochy stuck with Walker even after the setup man allowed 10 runs over his last four outings. Bochy made one change Tuesday, using his long man, Yabu, in the seventh inning with a lead, which will not be a one-time deal.

Wilson said he could not bear to blow the game for Lincecum, now 6-1, 4-0 after Giants losses.

Reporters had asked Bochy if he would allow Lincecum or Matt Cain to throw 130 pitches to get a no-hitter, as Boston did with Jon Lester on Monday night. Bochy said he would.

He still pulled Lincecum after six innings and 113 pitches. Lincecum tightened his pitching after throwing 77 pitches in the first three innings. Colorado looked like a team bent on tying the game, but Lincecum did not let it happen and left with a 4-3 lead after striking out his final two hitters.

Lincecum said he tried too hard to throw strikes, which is one way to throw balls. During one stretch, he went to three-ball counts on seven consecutive hitters, which might be why he said, "In my mind, this was one of my worst outings ever. Yeah, I battled, but I don't want to go through that again."

This was a rematch of Lincecum's only loss, to Colorado and Aaron Cook at China Basin on April 29.

But that was long-haired Timmy. At Coors Field, he was a shorn Timmy. He got a haircut at a place called Floyd's Barber Shop. No joke.

In the top of the first, the umpires had a Barney Fife moment after Randy Winn's two-out double extended his hitting streak to 15 games.

Bengie Molina crushed a ball to left-center that hit the top of the fence and bounced back. Initially it was ruled a homer, then a double. After jogging home, Molina had to return to second base and scored anyway on the first of two Aaron Rowand RBI singles.

The Giants also got RBIs from Omar Vizquel on a suicide squeeze and solo homers by Rich Aurilia, who now co-leads the team with five, and Fred Lewis, who homered in the ninth to pad the Giants' lead.

"Obviously that made the difference in the game," Rowand said. "That's something we've been harping on as a group of late. We haven't been adding on when we jump out to a lead. That's something we need to be doing. That makes a lot of difference in all the one- and two-run games we play."

Comment: Slumping Eugenio Velez is being sent to AAA Fresno and the Giants are recalling Travis Denker....the infielder acquired last season in the Mark Sweeney trade with the Dodgers.

Giants take a tumble in Denver

Henry Schulman - San Francisco Chronicle

-If you think the Giants have problems, consider the Rockies. The Giants were supposed to struggle. The Rockies won the National League pennant last year and with their youth, were supposed to rock and roll for a long time. Then they started the season 15-27.

Things are looking up for Colorado. The Rockies won their last two games against Minnesota over the weekend. Then the Giants popped up on their schedule.

Make it three in a row for the Rox, who came from behind to win 4-3 Monday night and extend the Giants' losing streak to six games, their longest since an eight-gamer in mid-June last season. The decisive hit was a two-out, two-run double in the sixth inning by former Giants catcher Yorvit Torrealba against Vinnie Chulk.

Only a Padres loss against St. Louis on Monday night saved the Giants (17-29) from falling into a tie with San Diego for the worst record in the majors.

"Basically, it was my fault. I hit my spot, but it was not a good pitch selection," Chulk said of an inside fastball that rode into Torrealba's strength, his quick hands.

Actually, a team going as rottenly as the Giants can spread the fault around. Even manager Bruce Bochy left himself open to second-guessing with two critical decisions. Both were defensible on some level. Both backfired.

The first was removing Pat Misch for Chulk with one out in the sixth after Matt Holliday's double and Garrett Atkins single cut a 3-1 Giants lead to 3-2. Misch's pitch count (88) was not in the danger zone, the next two hitters were 0-for-4 in the game and Chulk has had a propensity for coughing up big hits at the worst time.

This month alone, Chulk has allowed two crushing homers, including Lance Berkman's game-winner into San Francisco Bay on Thursday.

"He was getting the ball up," Bochy said of Misch. "We had the matchups we wanted. Misch, he was pitching a good ballgame there. That inning, he was up."
Chulk walked Ryan Spilborghs. He rebounded to strike out Jeff Baker before Torrealba ripped his chalk-hugging double into the left-field corner, a ball that probably would have hooked foul at sea level. Holliday jogged home from second and Spilborghs blew through a stop sign from third-base coach Mike Gallego to score the go-ahead run.

"If I was thrown out," Spilborghs said, "I'm sure I'd be getting a lot of s - right now."

Fortunately for Spilborghs, Fred Lewis bounced his throw and handcuffed cutoff man Omar Vizquel, who had no shot at a relay home. The Rockies led 4-3, and Misch again missed on what is becoming an elusive first big-league win.

Bochy said he has to keep turning to his bedraggled bullpen, which allowed 20 earned runs (10 by Tyler Walker) in 27 innings on the last homestand.

"We need those guys to come through," Bochy said. "He (Chulk) made a mistake. He's got good stuff. We've just got to pitch smarter."

The other decision by Bochy was having Eugenio Velez pinch-run after Jose Castillo's leadoff single in the ninth against closer Brian Fuentes. Velez is fast and Torrealba does not have a good arm behind the plate, but Velez is getting terrible reads against left-handed pitchers and keeps getting picked off. Sure enough, it happened again. Rally over.

"I'm pinch-running for a reason," Bochy said. "We've got a good base-stealer there. Facing their closer, you're hoping to steal a base and get the runner into scoring position. We're not the kind of club that can sit back. He's a good base-stealer. He's just in a stretch where he's making mistakes against left-handers. He'll figure it out. In that situation, you can't guess that much."

The Giants wasted good offensive performances by Randy Winn and Lewis. Winn homered to extend his hitting streak to 14 games and added a sacrifice fly and a single. Lewis hit two triples. His first, against starter Jorge De La Rosa, was his first extra-base hit this season, and fourth hit overall, in 23 at-bats against left-handed pitchers.

Coors Field is kind to Lewis. He hit for the cycle here last season.

"I love it," Lewis said. "The ball travels here. I'm just happy to see a left-handed pitcher. That's what I need to work on right now. I haven't seen it in awhile."

Sort of like the Giants, who have not seen a victory in awhile.

Comment: Here we go again. Back to losing 101. Just when you start having hope of improvement, another bump in the road. In the minors....look for Pablo Sandoval. The switch hitting catcher now at Class A San Jose is hitting above .400 with power. More to come....

What Can You Say?

Henry Schulman - San Francisco Chronicle

As manager Bruce Bochy was introduced on a satellite-radio talk show last week, the hosts raved about how well the Giants were doing. Their record was 16-23 at the time, raising the question, were the expectations really that low?

Yes they were, and with a 3-7 homestand that ended dreadfully Sunday, the Giants finally played down to those expectations.

After Matt Cain coughed up four home runs for the second time in his career, including three in the span of seven batters, the Giants rallied with three runs in the seventh inning to tie the game 6-6, only to get crushed by the White Sox 13-8 on seven runs in the eighth and ninth against Tyler Walker and Brian Wilson.

The eight Giants runs would have been enough to win any of the previous 13 games they had lost. But when a team is flailing as badly as the Giants are - with five straight losses and 12 in their last 15 games - the ledger of runs scored and runs allowed rarely match properly.

The Giants have scored six runs eight times this season and lost five of those games.

"It's extremely frustrating," Walker said. "The pitchers aren't picking up the hitters and the hitters aren't picking up the pitchers. This is a team game. Everything has to click on all cylinders to win ballgames. Today, our offense stepped up huge and our pitchers didn't shut down their hitters. It was a tough day."

It has been a tough couple of weeks. The sheen of the first 31 games, when the Giants were 14-17, has all but disappeared now that they are 17-28.

"We think we're better than what our record shows," said Bochy, who planned to talk to the team on the plane ride to Denver. "We've lost some tough ones. The buck stops here. It stops with the players and the staff. We're the ones who can change that and turn this around. All we can do now is keep pushing forward and keep our heads up."

What a strange end to the homestand. For four innings, Cain's start had no-hitter written all over it. By the end of his seven innings, Cain and the Giants trailed 6-3 because Cain could not keep the ball in the yard. After allowing six homers all season, he served up four in three innings.

Joe Crede's one-out homer in the fifth was Chicago's first hit and tied the game 1-1. Orlando Cabrera's leadoff homer in the sixth retied it 2-2. After A.J. Pierzynski hit an opposite-field single on a 3-2 pitch, Carlos Quentin socked his American League-leading 11th home run over the fence in left-center.

Cabrera, who had one homer coming in, hit his second of the game in the seventh to give Chicago a 6-3 lead. When Cain was done, he sat in the dugout shaking his head.

"That's why this game is so humbling," Cain said. "You can go out there and pitch a great couple of innings. All of a sudden it can blow up in one inning."

Lots of innings blew up for all sorts of pitchers. The Giants tied the game with a three-run rally against two Chicago relievers in the seventh. Randy Winn tripled, Jose Castillo singled home a run and Bengie Molina tied it with a two-run double - his only two RBIs on the homestand.

But the White Sox took a 9-6 lead on a three-run double against Walker by pinch-hitter Nick Swisher, a blooper to the left-field line that was hit as softly as the three singles that preceded it. Walker gave up 10 runs over three innings on the homestand. On Thursday, he allowed four runs on two homers to blow a 7-3 lead.
That game, he said, "was almost easier to swallow than getting chinked to death" by Chicago.

The Giants scored twice in the eighth after Octavio Dotel walked the bases loaded, but Chicago salted it away with four ninth-inning runs against Wilson.

The skies look even more foreboding for the Giants as they embark on their second-longest trip of the year. After three games at Colorado, which passed San Francisco for third place in the National League West, they visit division leaders Florida and Arizona.

The challenge seems more daunting in light of the Giants' 6-13 road record.

"Regardless of the team, you've still got to execute the game of baseball," reliever Vinnie Chulk said. "It doesn't really matter who you're playing. If you execute late in the game and do the little things during the game, we'll get some wins on the road trip and hopefully come back with a winning record for the trip.

"We've just got to get back to that killer instinct when it gets close. In the late innings, we've just got to put it away when we've got it, and if we don't have it, just try to scrap for a run or two and try to pick up a win that way."

On Sunday, the Giants scrapped for eight yet fell far short of a much-needed win.

Oh And 8. Oh My.

Ron Kroichick - San Francisco Chronicle

Barry Zito staggered into dubious territory Saturday night. He labored through five innings, absorbed another loss and became the first Giants starter to drop his first eight decisions in a season since Jesse Burkett in 1890, a mere 118 years ago.

All that and Zito wasn't even the real culprit in San Francisco's latest loss.

The Giants fell 3-1 to the Chicago White Sox, mostly because their offense showed absolutely no vigor for the second consecutive night. They mounted few threats, wasted the chances they did create and ultimately stumbled to their 10th defeat in 13 games.

Giants hitters were strikingly anemic with runners in scoring position - 1-for-7 on the heels of an 0-for-12 showing Friday night. The Giants have scored only one run in their last 23 innings, and their season total of 151 runs ranks next-to-last in the majors, ahead of only San Diego (148).

It reached the point where hitting coach Carney Lansford convened a meeting before Saturday night's game, hoping to spark an uprising, but more frustration followed. First baseman Rich Aurilia acknowledged the hitters probably are pressing, restless to snap out of their funk.

"We're playing in our home park and not scoring a lot of runs," Aurilia said. "We're getting decent pitching. That's the frustrating thing - our guys are pitching well and keeping us in games, and we're not helping them."

Said manager Bruce Bochy: "We're trying to get this offense going. We just need a big hit here or there, and it will relax everybody."

Zito wasn't the only left-hander trying to retrieve past glory on a cool night in China Basin. He and Chicago's Mark Buehrle were 209-146 combined over their seven previous seasons - and they showed up Saturday night at 1-12 collectively this season, with a 6.16 ERA.

Buehrle did not overpower the Giants, but he threw strikes more reliably than Zito did. The Giants put the ball in play against Buehrle - he collected only one strikeout in his 62/3 innings - but he often had hitters off-balance, tapping soft, harmless grounders.

San Francisco's most costly failure with runners on base came in the seventh inning, with the White Sox leading 3-1. Pinch hitter Steve Holm worked a two-out walk against Buehrle, loading the bases and prompting Chicago manager Ozzie Guillen to summon reliever Octavio Dotel.

Dotel struck out Randy Winn to abruptly end the threat.

Zito's outing probably looked painfully familiar to Giants fans, except he somehow departed with his team trailing only 2-0. That counted as astonishing, given how the White Sox clogged the bases with runners - 14 in all during Zito's five innings (eight hits and six walks).

Many of the hits were soft and well-placed, but Zito again served as his own worst enemy, repeatedly losing contact with the strike zone. He walked at least one batter in every inning he pitched, causing his pitch count to quickly climb from 30 in the first inning to 116 through five.

Zito sat at his locker afterward, ice packs strapped to his shoulder and elbow and a mixture of frustration and resignation in his voice.

"I didn't have a good fastball tonight," he said. "You hear pitchers talk about using their defense and forcing contact, that's what I need to do."

As for his unsightly record, Zito said, "I think I got over that a few starts ago. I just want to compete and be aggressive and give my team a chance to win. I'm obviously not satisfied with the results of my last three starts, but I think they're steps in the right direction."

Zito obviously struggled Saturday night, but he also evaded serious damage. The White Sox stranded 11 runners during his five innings.

"Barry battled his tail off," Bochy said. "He got in a lot of jams, but he battled out there and gave us a chance to win. Our bats are just quiet right now."

Eugenio Velez, pinch hitting for Zito in the fifth, achieved something no Giants hitter had in the team's 18 previous innings: He knocked home a run. It was an innocuous RBI groundout, scoring Jose Castillo, but it represented San Francisco's first run since the fourth inning of Thursday's loss to Houston.

Chicago edges Giants

Lack of offense keeps S.F. sinking

Andrew Baggarly - MercuryNews

First order of business for incoming Giants general partner Bill Neukom: Find a clutch hitter or two. Maybe even three.

The Giants might have changed the top of their organizational pyramid Friday night, but their offense still knows how to hit rock bottom. They were 0 for 12 with runners in scoring position and Jonathan Sanchez paid for one pitch in a 2-0 loss to the Chicago White Sox.

The Giants stranded a runner in scoring position in each of the six innings and Alexei Ramirez hit a two-run home run in the seventh inning, leaving fans with little to cheer as their club lost for the ninth time in 12 games.

They had plenty to boo, though. A.J. Pierzynski made his first visit to AT&T Park since the Giants released him after a controversy-filled 2004 season, and his every plate appearance was accompanied by lasting baritones.

"It was weak," said Pierzynski, who hit a triple and was stranded in the sixth inning to extend a nine-game hitting streak. "I got booed better in Anaheim (earlier this week). They booed me more when I played here."

Unless the Giants can muster some clutch hits, the boos could grow even after Pierzynski and the White Sox leave town. The Giants are hitting .215 with runners in scoring position and two outs.

The Giants stressed execution and situational hitting all spring, but with a quarter of the season gone, hitting coach Carney Lansford has found that his lessons haven't stuck.

"We did what we wanted to do and create the opportunities," Giants Manager Bruce Bochy said. "But we just missed a timely hit or even a productive out."

Sanchez had his changeup and slider working as he held Chicago to five hits and struck out six in 6 2/3 innings.

"I just made one mistake," said Sanchez, whose changeup to Ramirez was down but over the plate. "That's it, that was the game."

Pierzynski had been waiting for this game a long time. He won a World Series ring with the White Sox in 2005 and reacted with schadenfreude over the painfully one-sided deal the Giants made to acquire him from the Minnesota Twins prior to the '04 season. The Giants gave up All-Star closer Joe Nathan, pitcher Boof Bonser and rising star left-hander Francisco Liriano for Pierzynski, who was released after one turbulent season.

"It worked out great for everybody," Pierzynski said. "For the Twins, for me, for everybody."

Pierzynski said the first insult hurled at him Friday came from a stadium worker as soon as he stepped foot in the ballpark.

"A guy who works here said, 'Here's the guy who ruined the organization,"' Pierzynski said.

A day earlier, Pierzynski told White Sox beat reporters that he knew he would be a Giant for just one season, even before he played his first game with the club.

He accused General Manager Brian Sabean of threatening his agent against taking the club to arbitration. Pierzynski ended up winning a $3.5 million salary through the process, $1.25 million more than what the club had offered.

"We were going to file a lawsuit because the Players' Association wanted to sue him for breaking laws of ethical negotiations," Pierzynski told reporters. "He promised me if I went to arbitration, I'd be back for only one year and this and that. Basically, it all came true. I was only there for one year from the start."

Pierzynski said he got a bad vibe from his very first meeting with Sabean and outgoing managing partner Peter Magowan.

"The owner asked me if I knew how to play first base. I looked at him and said, 'I played in the minor leagues,"' Pierzynski said. "He said, 'We like our players to be able to play more than one position, so you probably will get a lot of games at first base.' That's when I knew it was probably not going to work out there."

Changing of the Guard

William Neukom, Giants' new managing general partner

Carolyn Said - San Francisco Chronicle

Experience

-- President, American Bar Association, August 2007-present. Initiated World Justice Project to promote the rule of law internationally. Also promoted access to legal service for the poor; rebuked the Bush administration about torture, Guantanamo war court, and firings of federal prosecutors.
-- Partner, Seattle office of K&L Gates, one of nation's 10 largest law firms, 2002-present. Neukom was a partner at the firm's predecessor, Preston, Gates & Ellis, before joining Microsoft.
-- Executive vice president of law and corporate affairs, Microsoft Corp., 1985-2001. Bill Gates' father asked Neukom in 1979 to advise his son's fledgling 12-person firm. That led to his being the top lawyer for the world's largest software company. He defended Microsoft against a huge antitrust suit brought by the U.S. Justice Department and the European Union, resulting in consent decrees in 1994 and 2001.

Philanthropy
-- His Microsoft stake was worth $107 million when he retired in 2001.
-- Neukom Family Foundation, started in 1996 with his four children, funds health and human services projects; has endowment of more than $20 million.
-- Donated $20 million to Stanford Law School in 2006 for a new academic building. Endowed William H. Neukom Professorship of Law in 2002.
-- Committed $22 million in 2004 to establish Dartmouth Institute for Computational Science.

Education
-- Bachelor of arts, Dartmouth College, 1964. Served on board of trustees 1996-2007 (chair 2004-2007).
-- Law degree, Stanford University, 1967.
Personal

-- Attended San Mateo High.
-- Lives in Seattle with wife Sally.
-- Age 66.

Comment: Talkin' Giants Baseball welcomes William Neukom and congratulates Larry Baer for his promotion to President.

All Giants fans owe Peter Macgowan a great deal of gratitude for all that he has done for this franchise. Macgowan's legacy includes saving the Giants from being sold and relocated to St. Petersburg, Florida; bringing in superstar Barry Bonds (no matter how you look at this controversial player, his achievements as a Giant player rank amongst the all-time greats in franchise history); building the jewell we now know as AT&T Park; and many years of competitive and playoff caliber Giants teams.

Thank you Peter and the very best of luck in your retirement.

Dog day afternoon for Giants' bullpen

Michelle Smith - San Francisco Chronicle

With a 6-0 lead after three innings and Tim Lincecum on the mound, the Giants had to like their chances of beating the Houston Astros on Thursday afternoon.

That is why there was so much self-flagellation in the clubhouse after the Astros capped a long, hot day at AT&T Park with an 8-7 victory.

Reliever Tyler Walker took both the brunt of Houston's comeback and the blame after the game, sitting on his chair with a towel over his face well after his teammates had cleared out.

He was on the mound in the eighth when Houston tied the game with a four-run rally, including a solo homer by Carlos Lee and a three-run shot by pinch-hitter Darin Erstad.

But it was Vinnie Chulk who ended up with the loss after giving up a solo homer on the first pitch of the ninth inning to red-hot Lance Berkman. Lincecum, making his bid for a 6-1 start, settled for the no-decision.

There was also a costly wild pitch to Geoff Blum on strike three that gave life to Houston's comeback.

Walker called the 1-0 fastball to Erstad a "poorly executed pitch" and lamented that he was behind in the count on too many hitters.

"That might have been one of the worst pitches I've thrown all season," Walker said of the pitch to Erstad. "You can basically blame this loss on my poorly executed pitches. This game should have been over. We had a four-run lead and six outs to get.

"I put it right in his wheelhouse. It's just embarrassing."

On the other side of the room, Chulk was beating himself up over the high change-up to Berkman that was the game-winning run.

"With a guy hitting the ball like he is, you can't make a mistake like that," Chulk said. "That pitch was supposed to be down, maybe in the dirt. I knew I wanted a changeup down on that first pitch. I didn't get to throw him another one."

Berkman was the man you'd least want to face with a tie game in the ninth. He finished the game with two hits and three RBIs and was 7-for-15 in this series with three homers and seven RBIs, extending his hitting streak to 14 games.

"It might be the best comeback I've seen since I've been here," Berkman said. "Just because of who was on the mound for them, the getaway day, a bunch of factors."

The Giants hadn't given up a six-run lead and lost since Sept. 8, 2000.

"It was nice to get out to that big lead. We haven't been able to do that much this year," said Giants right fielder Randy Winn, who was 3-for-5 with two doubles and an RBI. "It's nice, but it's small consolation when you don't win."

When Lincecum left the game after six innings, following a laborious effort that included 105 pitches and 10 strikeouts, the Giants were up 7-4.

Lincecum cruised through the first three innings without giving up a hit before Houston warmed up in the fourth.

After giving up a leadoff single to Kazuo Matsui and a double to Hunter Pence, Lincecum was tagged by Berkman for a two-run single to right. Lincecum got two outs before Mark Loretta singled to left to make the score 6-3.

The Giants pushed the lead back to 7-3 when Omar Vizquel scored on a throwing error by Loretta.

"You get a six-run lead and you like your chances," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said, "with Timmy on the mound and our guys were fresh late. That is a good-hitting ball club. You tip your hat. They took advantage of some pitches and hit the ball out. That's what did us in."

The Giants had staked Lincecum to the 6-0 lead with a two-run first inning and four in the third, including an RBI double by Winn, an RBI single by Aaron Rowand and a two-run double by John Bowker.

After collecting 12 hits and seven runs through the first eight innings, the Giants went down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the ninth to Houston closer Jose Valverde.