Remember “Happy Lincecum Day”?

  In the 2010 LDS,  Lincecum pitched a masterpiece against the Braves—1-0 complete game shut out, giving up 2 hits and 1 walk, while striking out 14.  He threw 119 pitches; 75 were strikes.  I remember his pitches diving out of the zone at the last second.  The Braves swung and missed or fouled or hit weakly.  They couldn’t get the bat on the pitches he threw.  It was a great game.

  In his second 2011 season start Lincecum faced the Braves again.  He threw 110 pitches, 65 for strikes, in 6 1/3, giving up 6 hits and 6 walks and all 5 Braves’ runs, while striking out 6.  As I remember, Lincecum’s stuff wasn’t horrible that game, but it wasn’t his best, and the Braves took most of the pitches that they’d whiffed on 6 months earlier.  They had a plan.  They forced him to throw a lot of pitches by laying off close ones.  If he’d been able to hit the corners at the knees, he might’ve beaten them.  But he couldn’t.

  The Braves approach to Lincecum became a template.  Other teams used it, and he struggled when his stuff wasn’t perfect.  (The last great game I remember him pitching was the 133-pitch complete game shut out against the A’s, in June 2011 I think.)   Meanwhile, time passed.  He’ll be 29 years old next month.

  Are the 30-year-old muscles and tendons and ligaments unable now to compress the finely tuned violence of his motion?  Last month he pitched a game against the Padres that looked a lot like the 2010 PS masterpiece against the Braves.  Other games have looked otherwise.  The goal seems simple to me:  When his pitches are moving, all he needs to do is keep them at the knees and over the plate.  Why can’t he pound that part of the zone any more?

   As to trading him, I still don’t see it.  Why would any other team want to trade anyone of proven value in order to add Lincecum to its roster for the remainder of a one-year contract?

   I think we’ve got him for the rest of the year.  So we’ll have plenty of opportunity to see if his best stuff can still get the job done.  Given not only what he has accomplished overall, but specifically what he has done for this team, I’m pulling for him all the way.  But all bets are off.

Back to Giants

So the Niners have done enough to fill out their depth chart and we jump back to the Giants. Timmy against the Puds.

As of out late start (thanks NFL) Timmy is kicking off the weekend with a 1-0 advantage. This might be a big thing going forward. Timmy starting well sets the tone for an entire series. If he’s money, we’ve got reason to believe. If not, well, maybe Zito and Vogey will turn it up.

Also, the Niners filled out the depth chart and added a TANK. Good news, but you have to wonder if we’ll see them at all within the next two years. That’s probably a good problem to have.

The newest Niner is..

Yep, it’s that time again. Time when we pry our eyes away from baseball and watch the little ticker constantly running beneath the lacquered dome of Mel Kiper as we await the 49ers selection in the NFL draft.

This year the Niners pick 31st, which means we’ll get to see their pick somewhere around midnight local time (actually it’ll be closer to 8 pacific, but it’ll feel like the wee hours of the morning if you sit through the whole thing.) I’ll definitely be switching back and forth with the Giants game to see who went where. Raiderfans will get to kick off their debate early, as they will fire up the Ouija board and seance in Al to pick the guy with the best 40 time at the combine. (Kidding! They’re looking for the defense end who did the most reps this year.)

Don’t wait too long to tune in, however. There’s word that the Niners might be looking to move up in the draft in order to be sure they get the guy they want, most likely either Sheldon Richardson from Mizzou or Kenny Vaccaro from Texas.

Hitting a stride?

After what we can all agree was a Milwaukee series that brought some of the absolute worst Giants starting pitching in recent memory, things turned around 180 degrees with this weekend’s series against San Diego.

Yes, an injury/suspension depleted Padres squad certainly helped matters, but anytime you get two shutouts and 21 straight scoreless against a major league batting order you have to be thrilled.

Bumgarner was Bumgarner, giving up a couple but as we have some to expect from the lefty he turned in a solid start and left the team in a position to win. Then, Timmy gave us all a huge sign of encouragement with seven shutout innings on Saturday night, followed by the return of Bizarro-Zito who ran his home scoreless streak to 21 innings.

Despite playing out of their minds early, Colorado has only been able to get 1.5 games up. Meanwhile, the Dodgers have built themselves a hole and might just be fighting to stay in the picture while their once-deep starting pitching tries to mend. Greinke found himself on the wrong end of macho idiocy and now Billingsley is taking a trip to the DL. Agent Ned is checking to see of there’s a refund clause on the Harang trade.

If it weren’t suckling pig season right now, Tommy would be furious.

What to do with The Freak

Another week, another maddening outing from Timmy Tomko..err..Lincecum.

The offense bailed him out last night, rallying to score 9 runs on the reliable incompetence of the Colorado Rockies pitching staff. But Timmy did not look good, most notably in the 2nd inning when he gave up five runs.

The worst part about it is, aside from that one inning, the guy looked good. He was striking batters out and his stuff was moving all over the place. When he’s on, he’s still the guy who won two Cy Young awards. But when he’s off… hoo boy…

Short of a trade, it’s not like there’s much of an alternative to having Timmy in the rotation at this point. Despite the sense that moving him to the bullpen may make for the team, nobody in Fresno is close, unless you think the reanimated corpse of Boof Bonser is going to take the league by storm.

Fortunately, there is help elsewhere in the rotation, and from an unlikely source. It seems playoff Barry Zito is still with us and pitching some downright respectable baseball. If he keeps it up, the team might be able to stay afloat and then some while Timmy continues to work through whatever the hell it is that’s got him so out of whack.

Of course, then there’s the offseason conundrum that arises. If Lincecum isn’t his old self, he’s probably not coming back. Then again, if he finds his old self again, he’s probably going to be too expensive to resign as well. Zito, meanwhile, has a club option which, and I never thought I’d say this, could make sense for the Giants. If he’s locked in as number four, the idea of rolling the dice with a guy like Chris Heston (soft thrower with good secondary stuff) or a vet free agent at the #5 spot becomes far more palatable.

But, that’s for another day to worry about. Right now, we need to see more of first inning Timmy and way, way less of 2nd inning Timmy.

A Note on Zito While JDR and Dats and Others Finish Proofing Their Own New Posts

I was a founding member of the Anybody But Zito Coalition.  I laughed at the ineffectual yoga regimen and collaborated in the shark-attack fantasies.  When video of him in the water surfaced, I was right there, mocking his wobbly attempt to take off on three-foot beach break.  Then he showed up in 2012. 

His new approach was evident early in the season.  He had an excellent April.  After the disastrous opening series in Arizona, Zito got the Giants into the win column with a complete-game shutout—at Coors Field.  Something had changed.  I watched him carefully avoid the zone with his fastball and then pound it with the pitches that move.  Suddenly, he was effective.  But he had his bad outings, too.  Against the Rangers in June, he grooved a fastball to the second hitter he faced.  The booming big fly to the left-field bleachers knocked all 42,000 of us in the ballpark silent.  His moment of magic seemed over.

Yet of course, it wasn’t.  Zito gutted it out all year long and then pitched the game of his career in St. Louis.  I dislike the post-season networks as much as the next fan, but one thing those outfits offer is technology.  They’ve got the cameras, and whoever was directing the broadcast of game 5 realized where the story was.  Over and over again we got close shots of Zito’s face before he rocked into his windup.  The steady ferocity and determination in his eyes amazed me.  I believed the Giants were going to win that game because he believed it.

Look at the numbers.  They tell one story.  Look at some footage from game 5.  That tells a better story. 

Maybe yesterday was Zito’s high point for this season, or maybe he’ll perform as well as he did last year.  Who knows.  But one thing’s certain:  the ABZ Coalition disbanded forever.

The best day of the year

It doesn’t get any better than this. The Giants kick off play in just six hours and, like a kid on Christmas morning, I’m up early and chomping at the bit. The Giants get set to start another year as World_Series_Champions against some piddling club from down south. Dodgers or something? They’re a pretty good team on paper and have one or two fans who aren’t complete assholes.

Let this serve as the opening thread for opening day. Tommy may be back soon, as will a detailed rundown of our NL West competition. But for now, the game speaks for itself. All hail opening day,