SF Giants, A’s provide exciting preview for Bay Area baseball season

OAKLAND — Speed, sunshine and chaos helped bring Major League Baseball back to the Bay Area for Sunday’s Bay Bridge Series exhibition game between the Giants and A’s.

Just more than 11,000 tickets were sold on a bright afternoon, when a uniquely-modern brand of baseball was on display as the Giants out-hit and out-ran the A’s in a 9-5 win.

It was a weird one.

The umpires, now busy tracking such things as the number of seconds before a hitter steps into the box and the number of toes touching the outfield grass, lost track of the outs in the sixth inning. With a man on first base, A’s infielder Tony Kemp fielded a throw from third and touched second for a force out, but never made the attempt to turn a double play and instead ran off the field. His team followed.

The obedient Giants defenders replaced them on the infield dirt before asking the umpires for clarification. The call was rightfully reversed.

On the field, the play was choppy. That’s baseball in March for you. At least it was fast, with an action-packed game played in just 3 hours, 1 minute.

The Giants dropped a flyball in center field, fumbled the relay at shortstop and later threw a routine groundball into the outfield. But they hit two home runs and stole three bases to please an Oakland Coliseum crowd that unofficially favored the road team.

That shouldn’t be surprising for the A’s, who won an American League-worst 60 games last year and are coming off a winter in which they traded their best player, Sean Murphy, to the Braves and made only a handful of small signings.

Without a long-term stadium plan to fuel spending, they’ll enter Opening Day with a payroll of about $60 million, lowest in the majors, and having won just 10 games in spring training. No other Cactus League team won fewer.

Asked before Sunday’s game if he was tired of answering questions about the A’s being perennially overlooked, general manager David Forst smiled and said, “I’m not sick of the question. I think we’ll surprise people.”

They’ll have to do it with a roster full of players most fans wouldn’t recognize.

“There are a lot of unknowns here,” Forst said. “But there are a lot of guys that are ready for their first Opening Day. One thing I know about a Mark Kotsay-managed team is they’re going to play hard, they’re going to play nine innings and it’ll be fun to watch.”

Sitting in the mostly-empty section 107 during the sixth inning on Sunday, just before the umpires mistakenly sent the Giants offense to the dugout with two outs remaining, one could have counted eight A’s jerseys, seven featuring the names of players no longer on the team (Matt Chapman, Rickey Henderson, Matt Olson, Jose Canseco and Dave Stewart).

The only modern fan was sporting a shirt-jersey of Shea Langeliers, once the organization’s top prospect, now 25, who is about to get his first full year in the big leagues.

Asked for one player he was most excited about this year, Forst said it was Langeliers.

The fan wearing the jersey, 18-year-old Emily Diehl, said they weren’t sure who Langeliers was.

“We just stopped at Target on the way to the game and found a T-shirt,” said Diehl, a Concord native. “We’re here because it’s nice outside and it’s a good day to be here.”

Across the bridge, the Giants are entering the season with higher expectations, albeit coming off an offseason that could forever be remembered for the Carlos Correa contract that wasn’t and the Aaron “Arson” Judge signing that didn’t happen.

Correa’s contract got ripped up due to a failed physical and concerns over his medical files. Judge re-signed with the Yankees not long after MLB Network reporter Jon Heyman mistakenly sent a Tweet reading, “Arson Judge appears headed to Giants.”

Kapler avoided making predictions for the Giants, who made enough additions to push their payroll near $200 million but are still expected to finish in the middle of a crowded National League West. He was more eager to forecast a big year for the sport.

“The game is going to be more efficient, more enjoyable and more exciting,” Kapler said.

The new pace of play rules shaved 25 minutes off the average spring training game, down to 2 hours, 36 minutes. The shifts have been (mostly) eliminated.

And, in a rule that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred must’ve come up with while sitting in traffic on the Bay Bridge, the size of the bases increased by 3 square inches to incentivize stolen-base attempts.

The A’s, who have a cartoon of a sprinting Henderson painted on their outfield wall, and the Giants, who haven’t had a 30-home-run hitter since Barry Bonds, are excited to run the bases.

The Giants, A’s and Reds each stole an MLB-high 40 bases during Cactus League play in Arizona.

“That’s a really good thing for our sport,” Kapler said.

The A’s will travel West for the second leg of the Bay Bridge Series at Oracle Park on Monday.

“There’s a friendly rivalry,” Forst said. “It’s great for the fans.”