SFGate

Editor’s note: The Chronicle is reviewing the season of each player after the Warriors’ second straight championship run. In the aftermath of their 2016 NBA Finals collapse to Cleveland, the Warriors had to come to terms with the fact that even with a core of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala, they were vulnerable against physical teams that forced them out of their ball-movement principles. Without another world-class scorer, they were perhaps too reliant on Curry and Thompson hitting three-pointers. Weeks...

SAN DIEGO — Normally, Khris Davis is a fixture in the A’s lineup. Manager Bob Melvin pencils him in as the cleanup hitter as routinely as he pencils in Jed Lowrie as the No. 3 hitter. But Davis has a “stomach illenss,” according to Melvin, and is out of the lineup for Wednesday’s interleague series finale. The Padres are starting a lefty, Joey Lucchesi, and Davis doesn’t ordinarily miss lefties. Davis is available to pinch hit, and if the game were played in an American League park, Melvin said, Davis possibly could have been in the lineup as the...

The Summer of Swaggy P took a strange turn Tuesday night when Nick Young told a TMZ cameraman that "everybody needs to do cocaine."

SAN DIEGO — Make that 20 straight road games with home runs. The A’s were one strike from ending their streak and losing the opener of a 10-game trip, but Stephen Piscotty took a mighty ninth-inning swing and hit a home run that tied Tuesday night’s game 2-2, and Jed Lowrie’s two-run homer in the 10th beat the Padres 4-2. Piscotty and most of his teammates were quiet for most of the evening. His previous three at-bats, he didn’t hit a ball out of the infield — two ground balls and a strikeout — but the former National Leaguer stepped up in a...

SAN DIEGO - The A’s are playing an interleague series in a National League ballpark, meaning they’re without the use of a designated hitter. Commissioner Rob Manfred hinted last week there’s momentum toward making the DH rule universal, but manager Bob Melvin, a former catcher who played and managed in both leagues, still prefers the status quo. “I like the differences in the leagues,” Melvin said. “I think that’s what makes each league unique. I’d be for keeping it the same.” At the same time, Melvin realizes the injury...

Hours after two of their players underwent surgery for broken hands, the Giants started a hit-by-pitch battle with the Marlins on Tuesday night that led to Miami center fielder Lewis Brinson and Giants catcher Buster Posey getting drilled, plus two Miami ejections. With one out in the second inning, and two runners on, Giants starter Dereck Rodriguez hit Brinson in the midsection in apparent retaliation for flipping his bat and staring down closer Hunter Strickland after his ninth-inning single Monday night, which added to the closer's anger over blowing a save. ...

Giants closer Hunter Strickland will be out six to eight weeks with a broken right hand after he punched a door in frustration following his blown save against the Marlins on Monday night, manager Bruce Bochy said. Bochy said Strickland had a “snap” and broke the fifth metacarpal in his pitching hand, the same bone that pitcher Madison Bumgarner and third baseman Evan Longoria had broken accidentally by baseballs. Strickland was undergoing surgery Tuesday afternoon, hours after Longoria had surgery in Los Angeles. “It was a tough loss,...

Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw is scheduled to make a minor-league rehab start Saturday as he continues his recovery from a strained lower back. The three-time NL Cy Young Award could be back pitching in the majors soon. Manager Dave Roberts said Kershaw will be limited to four innings and 60 pitches when he returns to the mound with Triple-A Oklahoma City at Omaha. If the outing goes well, Roberts hoped the left-hander’s next appearance would be with Los Angeles. Kershaw threw a three-inning simulated game before the Dodgers’ postponed series opener...

CLEVELAND — LeBron James won’t be picking any players during Thursday’s NBA draft. At least not directly. With the trajectory of their franchise riding on where he decides to play next season and beyond, the Cleveland Cavaliers will enter this year’s draft not knowing if they’re choosing a player to help them — and James — contend for another championship, develop a prospect for the future or potentially take a player to trade. It’s a guessing game. James has until June 29 to exercise his $35.6 million...

What a weird thing, the Giants' inability to beat the second-worst team in the league. The 29-44 Marlins assured themselves the season series against the Giants when they scored three against Hunter Strickland in the ninth Monday night to win 5-4. This was the Giants' worst loss of the season because they had a 4-0 lead and arrived home after a nice win in Los Angeles knowing they need to make hay during a long stretch of home games. But the Giants press on, with Dereck Rodriguez facing Dan Straily on Tuesday night in a rematch of the only Giants victory...

The Sharks traded Mikkel Boedker and a minor leaguer Tuesday in a pair of deals that netted the team a handful of draft picks over the next three seasons. Boedker, a 28-year-old left winger who had 37 points last season (15 goals, 22 assists), was sent to Ottawa along with minor league defenseman Julius Bergman and a sixth-round pick for forward Mike Hoffman, defenseman Cody Donaghey and the Senators’ fifth-round selection in the 2020 draft. San Jose then sent Hoffman and its seventh-round pick in this year’s draft to Florida for the Panthers’ fourth-...

Hunter Strickland blew the save chance Monday night, spoiling a solid start from Andrew Suarez and getting a critical portion of the Giants’ schedule off to a lousy start with a 5-4 loss to Miami at AT&T Park. The Giants dropped to three games below .500 as they started a span during which they’ll play 20 of 26 games at home, wasting an early-inning three-spot and the efficient outing from Suarez. Strickland retired only one batter in the ninth, allowing three runs on two walks and three hits — including a Miguel Rojas single to right that scored...

Getting a jump on the trade deadline to add talent to the back of their bullpen, the Washington Nationals picked up right-hander Kelvin Herrera from the Kansas City Royals on Monday for three minor-leaguers. The Nationals sent infielder Kelvin Gutierrez, outfielder Blake Perkins and 17-year-old pitcher Yohanse Morel to Kansas City in the deal announced during Washington’s doubleheader against the New York Yankees. Herrera, 28, is playing on a one-year contract. He helped the Royals win the 2015 World Series. A two-time All-Star, he has 14 saves and a 1.05...

How confident are the Warriors in their scouting department? They firmly believe that they will draft a player with the No. 28 pick in Thursday’s NBA draft — a spot often used on prospects who spend most of their careers overseas — who can contribute immediately. With its highest pick since it took Harrison Barnes seventh overall in 2012, Golden State will probably take a rotation-ready wing. Now, with three days until the draft, The Chronicle is looking at whom the top online mock drafts project the Warriors to select at No. 28: ...

Joey Bart generally tried to stay out of the Giants’ way as they prepared for Monday night’s game against the Marlins, but the No. 2 overall pick made a point to seek out Buster Posey. Bart, whom will probably replace the All-Star catcher one day, chatted up Posey as part of a whirlwind tour of AT&T Park a day after signing the richest signing bonus ever for a drafted position player ($7.025 million). Accompanied by his parents and two older brothers, Bart talked with Posey about his plans to workout at the Giants’ spring-training facility until he’s...