The Giants can only imagine how Houston felt after the Astros hit a season-high four home runs Sunday to capture a series win over the Chicago White Sox.
After setting a San Francisco-era franchise record by going 16 consecutive home games, covering 506 at-bats, without a homer, the Giants look to break the streak when they welcome the Astros for a three-game set. San Francisco stands five games behind the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers after losing two of three against Texas.
Read More
The A’s have gone to the dreaded “closer by committee.”
Grant Balfour could not hang on to the full-time closer’s role, and neither could Brian Fuentes, and after Fuentes allowed a walkoff homer Friday for the second time in four appearances, manager Bob Melvin decided to go with a group effort.
Rookie Ryan Cook, the A’s most reliable reliever all season, will join the mix, along with Fuentes and Balfour, and Melvin said he will factor in availability and matchups.
Read More
Apple took the wraps off its own mobile mapping service and improved the search capabilities of its Siri electronic assistant technology as it rolled out souped-up software and hardware Monday in San Francisco to help it wage war on Google.
CEO Tim Cook, who took over from late co-founder Steve Jobs last August, spearheaded the unveiling of new services to help keep Google and its fast-growing Android mobile platform at bay.
Read More
Second, fourth, fifth. Wherever Jason Kubel hit in the Diamondbacks’ lineup in a weekend sweep of the A’s, he hit.
Kubel had a single and two RBIs from the No. 5 spot Sunday, when the D’backs beat the A’s 4-3 to extend their winning streak to a season-high five games.
Kubel was 6-for-13 with seven RBIs in the three-game series sweep. He had a home run, a double and three RBIs while hitting second Friday and had three singles and two RBIs hitting in the cleanup spot Saturday.
Read More
Governor Jerry Brown heard a clarion call for his party to take on employee pensions in the overwhelming passage last week of retirement reforms by the second and third biggest cities in the state, San Diego and San Jose.
Yet the message did not resonate as strongly in the statehouse where fellow Democrats rule.
The pensions issue is set to trigger a fundamental struggle within the Democratic Party over what needs to be done and how fast. The result may be that voters have to force any changes they want through the state’s initiative process.
Read More
Two men were ordered on Friday to stand trial in the severe beating of a San Francisco Giants fan outside of Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on opening day last year.
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge found sufficient evidence for Louie Sanchez, 30, and Marvin Norwood, 31, to be tried on charges of mayhem, assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury and battery with serious bodily injury.
Read More
By:
SportsDirect
06/06/12 9:27 PM
Gregor Blanco homered and Madison Bumgarner won his seventh game as the Giants edged the San Diego Padres 6-5 on Wednesday at Petco Park.
The Giants sent nine batters to the plate and scored three runs in the first off Clayton Richard (2-7), who gave up six runs (four earned) on 10 hits over 5²⁄³ innings.
All eight of the Giants’ starting position players collected at least one hit.
Bumgarner (7-4) allowed four runs over six innings to win his second straight start. Sergio Romo worked a perfect ninth inning for his third save.
Read More
A California ballot measure that would have added a $1 tax to a pack of cigarettes was narrowly defeated in the state’s primary election Tuesday, an outcome observers attributed to a $47 million ad blitz by the tobacco industry.The measure was defeated 50.8 percent to 49.2 percent on a day of light voter turnout across the state. The result reflected a long-standing political divide in California, with San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Bay Area counties showing heavy support for the measure, while conservative suburban counties in Southern California were overwhelmingly opposed.
Read More
Ray Bradbury, a giant of American literature who helped popularize science fiction with works such as “The Martian Chronicles,” died on Tuesday at age 91, his publisher said on Wednesday.Bradbury published more than 500 works including “Fahrenheit 451,” a classic novel about book censorship in a future society, and other favorites such as “The Illustrated Man” and “Something Wicked This Way Comes.”“Mr. Bradbury died peacefully, last night, in Los Angeles, after a long illness,” said a spokesman for his publisher, HarperCollins.
Read More
By:
SportsDirect
06/05/12 11:10 PM
Ian Kinsler hit a two-run double and Derek Holland bounced back from his worst outing of the season as the visiting Texas Rangers won for only the second time in their past six games with a 6-3 victory against the A’s on Tuesday.
Josh Hamilton added an RBI double and Michael Young had a run-scoring triple for the Rangers, who raced to a 5-0 lead.
Read More
By:
SportsDirect
06/05/12 11:03 PM
Logan Forsythe led off the bottom of the ninth inning with a home run off Steve Edlefsen as the San Diego Padres snapped the Giants’ four-game winning streak with a 6-5 victory Tuesday at Petco Park.
The Giants loaded the bases in the top of the ninth against Padres closer Huston Street (1-0), fresh off the disabled list, but he escaped the jam by getting Buster Posey to ground out to end the inning.
Edlefsen (0-1) took the loss after Forsythe ripped the second pitch of the inning to deep left field.
Read More
Stephen Ames and Joe Durant were among nine players who booked their places at next week’s U.S. Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco in a weather-delayed sectional qualifier in Memphis on Tuesday.
A heavy thunderstorm on Monday had forced the 36-hole qualifier into a second day before Ames and Durant finally emerged among the fortunate nine, posting matching totals of 8-under-par 134.
PGA Tour rookie Tommy Biershenk led the way at 9-under-par.
Read More
One of the rarest astronomical events occurs on Tuesday and Wednesday when the planet Venus passes directly between the sun and Earth, a transit that won’t occur again until 2117.
Transits of Venus happen in pairs eight years apart, with more than a century between cycles. During the pass, Venus appears as a small, dark round spot moving across the face of the sun, like a bug on a dinner plate.
“The Venus transit really brings home to us, in a unique way, how ordinary our sun is. It’s just another star,” said scientist and author Mark Anderson.
Read More
By:
Ryan Leong
06/04/12 7:22 PM
The Giants and Chicago Cubs are headed in opposite directions, like two ships passing in the night.
Read More
Scoring in each of the last five innings, Alabama secured its spot opposite Oklahoma in the best-of-three Women’s College World Series championship round with a 5-2 decision over top-seeded Cal on Sunday.
The No. 2 Crimson Tide (58-7) got solo homers from Kaila Hunt, Jazlyn Lunceford and winning pitcher Jackie Traina, as well as RBI singles from Hunt and Kendall Dawson. Dawson’s hit snapped a 2-2 tie in the bottom of the fourth.
Read More
URL: http://www.sfexaminer.com/people/reuters?page=16
