Sunday starter no longer spectator

Sunday’s starter for the Giants is no stranger to the Bay Bridge series, though he’s yet to face the A’s in his career.

Sammy Long grew up in Sacramento a Giants fan, but like many youngsters, he attended far more games at the Coliseum because it was more affordable. And his favorite pitcher was a lefthanded starter — like himself — who played for both teams.

“Barry Zito — big time, with both the A’s and the Giants,” Long said. “Obviously my curveball is not modeled after his but it’s turned into one like his, which is pretty cool.”

Long’s curveball, which manager Gabe Kapler called “a unique pitch” on Saturday, isn’t quite as 126 as Zito’s big breaker; it has a little more tilt and it’s slightly harder. Long can throw one that mimics Zito’s, a looper that plunges straight down, and he might uncork that at some point, but he uses the more 115 curveball because it matches his fastball more closely out of his hand “and then it just goes down,” he said. “I can get it as big as I want, but there’s a time and place. One day, I’ll bring out like a 65 mph curve just like Zack Greinke does.”

The 75 mph curveball is serving him just fine: Long is throwing it nearly 40% of the time and no one has managed to record a hit on it yet.

Long, 25, will be making his fourth career bigleague ap

pearance and his second start, but a big series with a huge crowd will be right up his alley, Kapler figures.

“So far, it seems like Sammy has responded very well to heightened, elevated intensity, and I think he’s done a really nice job of channeling that adrenaline,” Kapler said. “I would bet that his family being here and supporting him with a full capacity crowd will probably improve his focus, if anything.”

Long expects about 15 friends and family members to be on hand, and they have been loud and visible during his previous two outings at Oracle Park, standing much of the way and particularly enjoying his atbats.

Long has been filling in in the spot held down by another Sacramentoarea pitcher, Logan Webb, who’s out with a shoulder strain, but if he continues to impress, he could stick around either in the bullpen or in long relief; his first two bigleague games came after the team used an opener. He’s now working on building up his workload so he can regularly throw 100 pitches, and he’s determined to improved his consistency: Sandwiched in between two good outings, he worked five innings and gave up four runs.

“If he keeps doing exactly what he’s doing, things are going to be just fine for him,” Kapler said. “I think he can continue to refine his command, continuing to be able to drop the curveball in for strikes, being able to go deep into games, just staying on top of those things.”

In 15 innings, Long has some strong numbers: 16 strikeouts, 11 of them on curveballs, to just three walks.

“It’s always going to be a goal of mine to keep improving,” Long said. “That’s why I like pitching so much — it’s neverending.”