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ByJohnHickey BayAreaNewsGroup ST. PETERSBURG, FLA. The Oak- land A's were second in the league in scoring a month into the season. The last three weeks have seen a tumble worthy of Humpty Dumpty leading up to Friday's 5-2 loss to Tampa Bay. The A's can't buy a big hit. They went 0-for-11 with runners in scor- ing position Friday. Three weeks ago Oakland was hitting .310 as a club with RISP. Now, nada, or close enough, .182. "What it's going to take is a cou- ple of people to relax," batting coach Darren Bush said. "These guys want to win. They want to score runs. We're getting men on base, but once they're there, we're putting too much pressure on ourselves. We need a couple of hits to fall, guys will relax and we'll be OK." That would be fine, but the A's don't have time to wait. On the day they welcomed new coach Ron Washington to the club to boost the shoddy infield defense, the A's lost for the 14th time in the last 16 games. Oakland has the worst re- cord in the major leagues at 14-30 and the season is no longer young. For all the finger pointing at the defense and the bullpen as the cat- alysts to the miserable start, the A's have scored two runs or less in seven of these 16 games that have pushed the A's to a precipice. That's not winnable baseball. Asked what has led to the offensive cliff dive, catcher Stephen Vogt had a one-word answer: "Losing." "Any time you keep losing every- body wants to do more, do more, do more," Vogt said. It was his homer that gave the A's their first lead in 31 BASEBALL A'S LOSE YET AGAIN ON COSTLY ERROR Oakland can't buy big hit lately in losing for 14th time in last 16 games; Longoria powers Rays' win STEVENESIUS—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Oakland A's starter Scott Kazmir walks to the mound a er giving up a three-run homer to the Tampa Bay Rays' Evan Longoria in the fi h inning Friday in St. Petersburg, Fla. STEVE NESIUS — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Oakland Athletics catcher Stephen Vogt, le , tags out the Tampa Bay Rays' Evan Longoria on a throw to the plate from Oakland le fielder Sam Fuld during the seventh inning Friday in St. Petersburg, Fla. RAYS5,ATHLETICS2 Up next: Oakland A's at Tampa Bay Rays, 1:10p.m. Saturday, TV on CSN-CA. THESCORE Islamic State group militants searched through the Syrian town of Palmyra for govern- ment troops and fighters, us- ing lists of names and inform- ers to track them down and shooting some in the head. ISLAMIC STATE ISpurgesopponentsin captured Syrian town FULL STORY ON PAGE B10 When prosecutor Dan Satter- berg used to visit Washington state's police academy, the seas would part before him. Recruits would snap to atten- tion, backs to the walls, and allow him to pass. LAW ENFORCEMENT Demilitarizing the cops: States retool training FULL STORY ON PAGE B7 DAN HONDA — BAY AREA NEWS GROUP The Warriors' Stephen Curry (30) guards the Rockets' James Harden (13) on the last play of the game in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals Thursday in Oakland. By Kristie Rieken The Associated Press HOUSTON Stephen Curry has been playing like the MVP he is to help the Golden State Warriors to a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference finals. Now things get tougher as the Warriors head to Houston for two games beginning Saturday night. Curry scored 34 points in Game 1, 33 in Game 2 and has made 11 3-pointers in the series. "You put a lot of hard work into your craft, and when you rely on that work, you kind of just are in the mo- ment, and those shots, when you rise up to take them, it feels natural, it feels normal," Curry said. "I feel con- fident, and you just live with the re- sults." The Warriors took the first game by four points and won the second one by a point when MVP runner-up James Harden couldn't fight through a double team to get a shot up for Houston before time expired. "It hurts, but they did what they had to do," Harden said. "They won two games at home. We're going back home to get two games." The Warriors had a 17-point lead Thursday night before a big run by the Rockets got them back into it. Golden State was unhappy that it let the game become so dramatic at the end. "They feel like they lost two games they should have won," Golden State's Draymond Green said. "We feel like we almost gave this one away ... we have a ways to go, there's a lot we can get better at. But we're sitting here 2-0 and that's the most impor- tant thing." Houston point guard Jason Terry, who won a title with Dallas in 2011, said Game 3 is the most important NBA PLAYOFFS WarriorsgotoHoustonup2-0 Curry has played like MVP to lead Golden State to pair of wins WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS Up next: Warriors lead series 2-0; Game 3, Golden State Warriors at Houston Rockets, 6p.m. Saturday, TV on ESPN. TUNEIN INDIANAPOLIS 500 Sunday: Race starts at 9a.m. PDT, TV on ABC. TUNEIN By Jenna Fryer The Associated Press INDIANAPOLIS They call the In- dianapolis 500 "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing" for its high speeds, rich history, enormous crowd and the take-your-breath- away competition. This year, IndyCar is hoping the 99th running of the event won't be a spectacle because of a serious on-track incident. Concern hangs over Indianap- olis Motor Speedway after the cars of Helio Castroneves, Josef Newgarden and Ed Carpenter all went airborne during practice sessions in the 10 days leading up to Sunday's race. All three drivers walked away unscathed, but Indy- Car officials scrambled on quali- fying day for a solution. All three drivers were driving Chevrolets, and the manufacturer INDYCAR SERIES Questions on safety hover over Indy 500 Red Bluff High's varsity baseball team is scheduled to face the Enterprise Hornets in the Northern Section CIF Division II championship game at 4p.m. today, Saturday, at Shasta College. BASEBALL PLAYOFFS Red Bluff faces Enterprise in title game Mercy High senior William Gentry was awarded the Northern Section CIF Scholar- Athlete of the Year award. The multi-sport athlete has a 4.25 GPA and performed over 500 hours of community service. HONORED Mercy senior receives scholar-athlete award INDY PAGE 2 WARRIORS PAGE 2 By Paul Newberry The Associated Press ATLANTA LeBron James scored 30 points and the Cleveland Cav- aliers took total command of the Eastern Conference final even without injured star Kyrie Irving, routing the Atlanta Hawks 94-82 on Friday night for a 2-0 lead with the series heading to Ohio. The Cavaliers made it a blow- out with a dominating third quar- ter. James scored 11 points, the Hawks shot just 32 percent (7 of 22), and Cleveland led by as many as 20 before settling for an 84-66 lead heading to the final period. Irving was scratched before the game because of an ailing left knee. He wasn't missed a bit. James assumed many of the ball-handling duties, tak- ing advantage of DeMarre Car- roll clearly not being at 100 per- cent after he went down with a knee injury late in Game 1. Car- roll started after being carried off the court just two nights earlier but hardly looked like the "Junk- NBA PLAYOFFS James leads Cavs to win over Hawks A'S PAGE 2 CAVALIERS PAGE 2 SPORTS » redbluffdailynews.com Saturday, May 23, 2015 MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS B1