P. 14 Sports

Mirador14 Sports 4/23/10

MLB Preview 2010: Giants and Athleticsby Aleck Ryner

After a strong 2009 season in which the San Francisco Giants finished 88-74, the team will look to make a playoff push this year.

Fueled by one of the best rotations in baseball, the Giants’ pitching staff is head-lined by two-time Cy Young award winner Tim Lincecum and All-Star Matt Cain, who are both 25 years old. The team’s num-ber three starter, former Cy Young winner Barry Zito, enjoyed a great second half last year, but still has not proven worthy of his $126 mil-lion contract.

Number four starter Jonathan Sanchez may be the one who de-cides the Giants’ fate this year. San-chez has electric stuff, and proved it by throwing a no-hitter last year, but he has been very inconsistent throughout his career. Rounding out the rotation is Todd Wellemeyer, who was a 13 game winner two years ago and will look to regain his form this season.

The biggest question mark for the Gi-ants is whether or not they will score enough runs to win games. Last year the team ranked near the bottom of the league in nearly every offensive category, and only two people, Bengie Molina and Pablo Sandoval, managed to hit 20 or more home runs. However, they did add first baseman Aubrey Huff and utility man Mark DeRosa during the offseason. Huff is only one year removed from a 32 home run season, and DeRosa hit 23 home runs last year with the Indians and Cardinals.

The offense will likely revolve around Sandoval, who hit .330 with 25 home runs and 90 RBI’s last season. The charismatic third baseman, known by Giants fans as “The Kung Fu Panda,” accomplished all of these feats while playing out of posi-tion (his natural position is catcher). The biggest question surrounding Sandoval is his weight, but some players around the

league, like Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambra-no, disagree.

“Man, there are a lot of guys who played this game who were big. Mo Vaughn was one of these guys. [Andres] Galarraga used to be big, no? Cecil Fielder, you know? Prince Fielder. [Sandoval] can hit,” said Zambrano in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Giants are also blessed with one of the best prospects in baseball, catcher Buster Posey. How-ever, Giants fans may have to wait a while to see him ex-tensively, as the team re-signed Molina, who hit a very pedestrian .265 last year and is known for be-ing the slowest player in base-ball. If Posey continues to hit like he did last year in the minors, the Gi-ants will have a tough time jus-

tifying keeping him in Fresno.The Giants have enough pitching to ad-

vance deep into the playoffs, but the ques-tion is, do they have the power to get them there?

Two-time Cy Young award winner Tim Lincecum assumes the role as the Giants’ ace.

by Jamie Riley

With a 2-10 record, the Lady Mats softball team has started the season slowly. Fortunately, the girls remain optimistic and hopeful for a productive season.

“Our team has done well so far this season,” said Kristine Miller ‘10.

The varsity team consists of 16 girls, with captains Miller ‘10, Morgane Marlow ‘10 and Julianne Vanni ‘10. Because of the small turnout of interested players, the team remains a small but tight-knit group.

“We could’ve had two teams, but then there would have been about 10 people on varsity,” said Marlow. “This is not enough because of injuries.”

Besides the three captains, the team consists of mostly sophomores and freshmen.

“It’s a pretty young team,” said Marlow.

The girls’ standard practices are held on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Games take place on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4:00 p.m.

Although the girls remain positive and happy about their win against Mt. Eden, they recognize there is a lot of room to grow as a team.

“In order to win, we need to start hitting more,” said Marlow. “We have a good defense, we just need to get the bats going.”

The team hopes to be as productive as they can be with the remaining season. With hard work and practice, the girls strive to improve every game. Of course, personal goals vary from player to player.

“My expectations for the season are to beat our record from last year,” said Miller. “We want to up the bar every year.”

Marlow’s own goals, although slightly less optimistic than Miller’s, are still hopeful.

“My expectations are nothing too high, they’re realistic,” said Marlow. “By the end of the season I want to have a good idea of who the five starters are that will replace the graduating seniors this year.”

On April 28, the girl’s face their next opponents at Dublin High School.

Softball Team Remains Poised

Starting Lineup:

CF Aaron Rowand SS Edgar Renteria 3B Pablo Sandoval 1B Aubrey Huff LF Mark Derosa C Bengie Molina 2B Juan Uribe RF John Bowker P (Pitcher)

Starting Rotation:

Tim Lincecum (RHP) Barry Zito (LHP) Matt Cain (RHP) Jonathan Sanchez (LHP) Tod Wellemeyer (RHP)

by Grant Huhn

Coming off a 75-87 record and another disappointing season, the Oakland Athlet-ics are poised to not only improve, but to reach the postseason. Oakland will rely on pitching, speed, and defense, and the young pitchers need to be effective in or-der for the A’s to have success this season. Thus far, the A’s have been successful, posting a record of 9-5 and leading the AL West division.

Ben Sheets was an impor-tant offsea-son move and could prove to be very ben-eficial for the young pitch-ing staff. After missing the en-tire ‘09 season, Sheets returns this year deter-mined to return to his old form.

If all-stars Sheets and Justin Duch-scherer remain healthy and pitch well, it will take a lot of pressure off the young pitchers and give the A’s a huge advantage on the mound. Dallas Braden has proven he can pitch in the bigs, while Brett An-derson and Gio Gonzalez have loads of potential and great stuff. It’s evident that the A’s have a deep rotation when the four and five starting pitchers Anderson and Gonzalez can both throw fastballs in the mid 90’s

The A’s biggest strength this season is the bullpen, which returns set-up men Joey Devine and Michael Wuertz, as well as Rookie-of-the-Year closer Andrew Bai-ley. Another asset to the bullpen is rookie Tyson Ross, who was not expected to make the roster, but has pitched very well this season.

After trading for Kevin Kouzmanoff and signing Coco Crisp, the A’s made it clear that they are emphasizing speed and defense to support the talented young pitching staff. Crisp is a proven base-steal-er and covers a lot of range in the outfield. Unfortunately, he injured his finger in the preseason and has been unable to contrib-ute to the A’s yet. Kouzmanoff, who was brought in mainly for his bat, also set the National League record for third base-men with a .990 fielding percentage last season. He committed only three errors in

309 total chances. For a team that truly lacks power, It

will be the responsibility of Kurt Suzuki, Kouzmanoff, and Eric Chavez to hit the homeruns and drive in runs for the A’s. If these guys fail to collectively produce, then the A’s season could be a cycle of losing low-scoring games in which the starting pitchers aren’t getting enough run support.

The A’s are emphasizing manufacturing runs this season via stolen bases and situational hitting. Ricky H e n d e r s o n , MLB’s stolen-base champion, worked with the A’s this offsea-son on stealing bases. Davis, Crisp, Suzuki, and Pennington are all capable of stealing at least 20 bases, which would be advantageous for the offense

because it wouldn’t require extra-base hits to drive them in. Davis leads the majors with seven stolen bases this season.

If they live up to their potential, the A’s could be a surprise team this year and have a shot at taking the AL West. They have a good enough pitching rotation to keep every game close, while the offense is a huge question mark. If things don’t go as planned, expect Sheets to be traded at the all-star break and for Oakland to endure its fourth straight sub-par season.

Photo: Sherry LaVars/Contra Costa Times/MCT

The A’s expect a lot of production from Kurt Su-zuki in the middle of the order this season.

Photo: Nader Khouri/Contra Costa Times/MCT

Starting Lineup:

CF Rajai Davis 1B Daric Barton RF Ryan Sweeney 3B Kevin Kouzmanoff C Kurt Suzuki DH Eric Chavez 2B Mark Ellis RF Travis Buck SS Cliff Pennington

Starting Rotation:

Ben Sheets (RHP) Dallas Braden (LHP) Justin Duchscherer (RHP) Brett Anderson (LHP) Gio Gonzalez (LHP)

Men’s Golf: Ball Striking Wondersby Katrina Kovalik

Despite having only nine players this year, the men’s golf team has been utiliz-ing all of its old, as well as new, talent in relentless pursuit of making it to NCS.

This season’s leading scorers include team captains Alex Paxton ‘10 and Will Lavis ‘11 as well as Jordan Nevares ‘11, Erik Thompson ‘11, Patrick Fabian ‘13 and Kevin Swimmer ‘13. Other team members include Taylor Campbell ‘13, Willie Berkowitz ‘13 and Ryan Stanton ‘12.

The Mats are scheduled to play 12 league matches this season and already have nine under their belt. On Wed., April 21 they faced off against Dublin, who won DFAL last year.

“Dublin is going to be one of the tough-er teams,” said Swimmer. “The players that won DFAL last year for Dublin were sophomores and juniors and now they’re juniors and seniors so they’ll probably be better.”

At the Aiello Invitational Tournament

hosted by Discovery Bay Country Club on March 22, Swimmer took home medalist honors after surpassing San Ramon Val-ley’s star player by one stroke.

During the boys’ weekday practices at Orinda Country Club or Tilden Park, coach Rick Eisenhour and assistant coach Skip Vulpe keep the team focused.

“Eisenhour’s definitely a good coach,” said Fabian. “He’s a little serious and a bit of a perfectionist, which really helps us, especially for putting.”

The team has practiced a lot this year and has suffered a few losses with a cur-rent record of 3-5, but the players still have an optimistic outlook on the season.

Although Campolindo is the golf team’s biggest rival and always turns out to be the main rival of most Miramonte sports teams, the players know that schools like Dublin and Alhambra are the real threats.

“We should have a good rest of the sea-son and have some great wins,” said Erik Thompson ‘11. “We have great talent this year and there are only home matches left which makes a big difference.”