
Schneeman hits 3-run homer power the Guardians past Verlander and the Giants, 4-2
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Daniel Schneeman hit a three-run home run to keep Justin Verlander winless in a San Francisco uniform, powering the Cleveland Guardians to a 4-2 victory over the Giants on Wednesday night.
Verlander (0-4) allowed four runs (three earned) in 4 2/3 innings after being activated off the Injured List earlier in the day. The nine-time All-Star gave up seven hits and had six strikeouts in his first start since May 18.
Kyle Manzardo doubled twice and Jose Ramirez added an RBI-single to help the Guardians clinch their first series win in San Francisco since 2005. Heliot Ramos homered for the Giants.
Schneeman's home run, his first since May 27, came on an 0-2 fastball from Verlander in the fourth. Carlos Santana reached on a fielding error by second baseman Tyler Fitzgerald and Lane Thomas singled before Schneeman's homer.
Logan Allen (5-4) gave up two runs and four hits in 5 1/3 innings to get the win for the Guardians.
Matt Festa and Tim Herrin each retired three batters, Cade Smith set down two and Emmanuel Clase got Patrick Bailey to strike out looking in the ninth for his 16th save.
After the Giants' Mike Yastrzemski drew a one-out walk in the seventh then advanced to second on a balk by Cade Smith, Smith worked out of the jam and retired Patrick Bailey and Ramos on consecutive swinging strikeouts.
Key stat
The Giants got their leadoff hitter on base in four innings and failed to score each time.
Up next
Giants ace RHP Logan Webb (6-5, 2.58 ERA) was set to face Guardians RHP Gavin Williams (5-3, 3.89) in the series finale Thursday.
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San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
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New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
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Actually, let's zoom in on that idiom because it fits perfectly here. There's plenty you can do with a horse that doesn't have a cart, but there's not much to do when it's the other way around. Harrison had the deception and fastball already, and that allowed him to be effective. That's the horse. It's already useful. You can ride around on it. You can put children on it and charge $5 a pop for pictures. You can brush it in the stable while telling it your problems. The off-speed pitches are the cart. Boy, you'd be cooking if you had one of those things, but it's not very useful without a horse. In the meantime, you can keep brushing the horse. The horse's name is Cloppy, and it loves apples. (Editor's note: This analogy went on for 17 more paragraphs before I trimmed it. You're welcome.) After acknowledging that all pitchers come with some base level of risk — and a lot of it — there's a higher floor with Harrison's current profile. 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It doesn't take an unfathomable amount of bad luck to get a random minor-league free agent in the rotation; it takes a regular amount of bad luck. If a team has five of the best 150 starting pitchers in the world before the season starts, it probably won't have all of them by the end. There's safety with the hoarding strategy, but there's also plenty of risk below the surface. Let's use an exaggerated example to explain why. Say that a team has the 10 best prospects in baseball. Now let's say they're all catchers. A team that holds all of them will almost guarantee that it will get excellent production from the position over the next several years. The team will mix and match to find the best one, and it will have overqualified backups and emergency plans. An invisible WAR counter is running backward over this team's Baseball-Reference page, though. The eight catchers in the minors aren't going to contribute any major-league value without an injury. The backup in the majors won't contribute as much as he could with an everyday job. The backward-WAR counter tracks the missing contributions from the players the major-league roster could have had if those extra catchers were traded for major leaguers who filled an immediate need. Advertisement The analogy falls apart when you consider the differences between pitchers and catchers. Teams need two catchers, but they'll need about 20 pitchers every season. A pitching logjam is much likelier to work itself out. Still, that final value of a prospect or young player isn't just measured by their career WAR. Tommy Joseph had a replacement-level career in the majors, and his career WAR with the Giants would have been around 0.0 if they had kept him. But the invisible WAR counter would have been ticking backward without Hunter Pence in the organization. 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Hamilton Spectator
2 hours ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Stokes backs Pope as England's No. 3 batter for India series and hints at tweak to ‘Bazball'
LEEDS, England (AP) — Who to pick at No. 3 out of Ollie Pope and Jacob Bethell was widely regarded as England's biggest selection poser heading into the highly anticipated, five-match test series against India. Turns out, it wasn't much of a headache for Ben Stokes. 'It would be remarkable to choose someone else if their last knock was 170,' the England captain said Thursday of the decision to keep faith with Pope after his big hundred in the one-off test against Zimbabwe last month. The 21-year-old Bethell is the next big thing in English cricket, a rising star in all formats who made a strong start to his test career — in the No. 3 position — by scoring a half-century in each test of the three-match series against New Zealand over the winter. However, Bethell didn't play against Zimbabwe at Trent Bridge because he was finishing off a stint in the Indian Premier League. Pope did play and, batting at No. 3, made 171 for his third biggest test knock. Pope is the team's vice captain and remains a trusted ally of Stokes, despite continued speculation over his place in the team. 'Having him at No. 3 and, since I've been captain over three years, averaging over 40. It speaks for itself, I think,' said Stokes, speaking on the eve of the first test at Headingley starting Friday. 'In this day and age, it's very tough to not see all the speculation and stuff around it, just because of how easily accessible things are. You don't even have to go hunt for it to see it these days. But I think scoring 170 in his last test match shows how well he's handled the extra scrutiny. It comes with the territory when you are an international player.' Under Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum, whose nickname is 'Baz,' England has played an entertaining, aggressive, attack-at-all-costs brand of cricket that earned the label 'Bazball.' It has helped turn around the fortunes of England's test team, even if some see the approach as naive at times, especially when up against the world's top sides. Stokes hinted at a possible tweak in strategy in the series against India, which comes before England heads to Australia for the Ashes. 'India always bring excitement with them, wherever they go in the world,' Stokes said. 'We still want to be known as a team that plays an exciting style of cricket. But now, not that we never wanted to win every game that we played, it's about changing what we say, how we say it. 'We want to be playing an exciting game of cricket because we know that brings the best out of individuals, and us as a team. But it's about winning.' ___ AP cricket: