Giants outfielder Angel Pagan may have spent the past four seasons as a New York Met, but when his new team travels to face his old team this weekend, none of that history will matter.“It’s just another city,” Pagan said. “Now I’m just wearing a different uniform. I’m going to play the game just like another game and see what happens.”The park he returns to today won’t be exactly the same as the one he left, however, as the Mets moved the outfield fences in to help increase offensive performances at Citi Field, which opened in 2009.
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Brian Wilson will have his second Tommy John surgery in Pensacola, Fla., today to repair structural damage to his right elbow. Dr. James Andrews will perform the procedure. The Giants closer had the procedure in 2003, when he was pitching for LSU. He said before leaving the Bay Area that he plans on being around the ballpark plenty during his rehab process, and manager Bruce Bochy said he expects him back after the upcoming road trip.
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Matt Cain continued to show why he’s the highest-paid right-handed pitcher in history on Wednesday. Unfortunately for Cain, nine shutout innings were not enough for the righty to earn a win. But thanks to the heroics of Melky Cabrera, the Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies 1-0 in 11 innings at AT&T Park.Cabrera’s single in the 11th drove in Brandon Belt, who didn’t start but came in on a double switch in the 10th. Cain followed up his one-hitter in Friday’s home opener with another gem, allowing two hits and one walk.
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Issue: Identity crisisAnalysis: It’s early, but it’s not. It’s definitely not too early, after six weeks of spring training and a couple of weeks of regular-season games, for every team in big-league ball to have started to establish an identity.But what is the Giants’ identity? Do you have any clue whatsoever? If you do, you’re seeing something most of us aren’t.
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Madison Bumgarner made a strong start toward showing he deserved the five-year contract extension he signed Monday, leading the Giants to a 4-2 win over the Philadelphia Phillies at AT&T Park on Tuesday.
The home team had another shaky first inning, but this time didn’t let two errors — one by Bumgarner and one by shortstop Brandon Crawford — turn into any runs. Bumgarner settled down after that, lasting six innings while scattering seven hits and a walk and allowing two runs.
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Pat Burrell arrived in San Francisco in 2010 just in time to help drive a wild run to a World Series championship. He was back in AT&T Park on Tuesday night to throw out the first pitch of the game against the Philadelphia Phillies, a team he spent 10 of his 12 major-league seasons with after they drafted him No. 1 overall in 1998. Burrell will sign a one-day contract with the Phillies so he can retire as a member of the team, though he is currently working as a special assistant to Giants general manager Brian Sabean.
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Monday night’s game at AT&T Park was supposed to be a low-scoring duel between two of the league’s best pitchers, but that theme didn’t even last one inning as the Giants lost to the Philadelphia Phillies 5-2.
With each team’s ace on the mound — Tim Lincecum for the Giants and Roy Halladay for the Phillies — both teams loaded the bases in the first inning, with the Phillies scoring four times and the Giants one. Each team added a run in the fourth to round out the scoring.
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Giants manager Bruce Bochy likes to invoke that old cliché, “Players make out the lineup,” meaning that performance decides who will play. He should also admit that contracts play a big part in lineup decisions for the Giants.
Case in point: Though Brandon Belt was supposed to start the first two weeks, unless a left-hander were pitching, he was not in the lineup for the second series of the season, nor the first two home games against Pittsburgh.
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The Giants continued the process of locking up their young players to long-term deals Monday by signing Madison Bumgarner to a $35.5 million, five-year extension that will keep him with the team through at least 2017.
The left-hander is now secured through his arbitration years and into at least his first year of free agency, with club options extending two years beyond that.
The deal comes on the heels of an extension for fellow starter Matt Cain, who signed a five-year deal of his own April 3.
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Ryan Vogelsong made a strong season debut against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Sunday, but one bad inning left him on the losing end of a 4-1 game.
Vogelsong retired the first three hitters he faced, but all four hits he surrendered came in the second inning — when the Pirates rallied for two runs before he settled down, finishing with seven strikeouts, three walks and one hit batter in 6¹⁄³ innings.
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URL: http://www.sfexaminer.com/archive/109/109?page=35
