OT: Congrats little Timmy!

[the 'stache]

I caught the last two innings of Tim's no no last night. His pitching performance was very encouraging as far as his future goes. His velocity is down a bit from when he won the back to back Cy Young Awards in 2008 and 2009, but his stuff is still nasty.

Tim's problem has been maddening periods of inconsistency. He's had several really good starts where he just hit a wall, and fell apart. Tonight he had batters swinging and missing all over the place. He can be a dominant pitcher again if he can continue mixing up hit pitches like he did last night. And I'm happy to say that. I really like Tim Lincecum, and I'd like to see him back on top of his game.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by the 'stache

Tim's problem has been maddening periods of inconsistency. He's had several really good starts where he just hit a wall, and fell apart. Tonight he had batters swinging and missing all over the place. He can be a dominant pitcher again if he can continue mixing up hit pitches like he did last night. And I'm happy to say that. I really like Tim Lincecum, and I'd like to see him back on top of his game.

Lincecum seems to have one bad inning per outing, but that one inning is usually a really bad one. And the Giant's offense is rarely able to bail him out.

[novakjr]

Originally Posted by the 'stache

Tim's problem has been maddening periods of inconsistency. He's had several really good starts where he just hit a wall, and fell apart. Tonight he had batters swinging and missing all over the place. He can be a dominant pitcher again if he can continue mixing up hit pitches like he did last night. And I'm happy to say that. I really like Tim Lincecum, and I'd like to see him back on top of his game.

From what I've seen, he seems to run into 1 of 3 problems each time. He seems to get frustrated and then falls apart..

1)10+ pitch AB's that result in a bloop single. Then he falls apart.
2)Facing the pitcher. Instead of just pitching, he starts nibbling and throwing junk, like he's trying to show him up. If it ends up in BB, he falls apart.
3)Defensive miscues, even ones that aren't technically errors. He falls apart.

As much as I like Scutaro, he's been the biggest culprit of the 3rd one. On at least 3 occasions this year, I've seen a Scutaro miscue start Timmy disaster innings.

Timmy's 2nd start of the year vs Colo, was the most notable. Scutaro throws away a ball to 2nd, trying to turn a DP, when Tulo was already safe at 2nd(scutaro does this more often than I think a MLB caliber middle infielder should), instead of just throwing to 1st to get Cuddyer. Scut's get charged with an error on the bad throw(because Tulo advanced to 3rd), but because the runner was already safe at 2nd(and you can't assume a DP), it's ruled that "both runners are safe on FC" and no "out" is applied toward ERA consideration.. Timmy got hit with 5 ER's that inning instead the 0 that it should've been(based on the scoring technicality). And that's not even taking into consideration, that had Scutaro made the appropriate play, Timmy might not have even fallen apart in the first place. Timmy follows that up that inning with 2 hits(one is a solo shot to Tulo), 1 BB and 6 K's over the next 4 innings..

[Rob D.]

Bump for performance reduction.

San Francisco       IP     H    R   ER   BB   K   HR   ERA
Lincecum (L, 5-10) 3.2   9   8   8     1     2   3   4.73

[the 'stache]

Ya, Rob, anybody who was expecting more magic last night was in for a disappointment.

The Giant pitchers have driven me crazy in fantasy baseball. Last year I had Lincecum, who imploded. This year, I drafted Bumgarner and Cain. Bumgarner has been quite good (with a few bad starts here and there), but Cain has been awful. Just when you think he's getting back on track, he has a serious brain fart.

I actually like the idea of making Lincecum a closer. The guy's still got nasty stuff. His heater is down a few ticks, but the first time or two through the lineup, he's usually good. It's that third pass that usually kills him--at least in the games I've watched him. Out of the pen as a closer, he could basically turn a game into eight innings.

Cain will rebound. Bumgarner is great. I was surprised they traded away Zack Wheeler when they did. But their loss is going to be New York's gain. The Mets starting rotation with Harvey, Wheeler and Noah Syndergaard is going to be downright nasty. I mean filthy.