Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Juiceless Tim


"I didn't feel like I had much juice."

I say we forget this whole visit to Shea stadium thing. I imagine Tim Lincecum may feel the same way. His performance yesterday, his second loss of the season, was not as scary as Tim's start last year in New York. (Remember that one? Perhaps you blocked it out. Think Armando and balks. Need I say more?) This time we were done for as soon as Tim gave up a very uncharacteristic long ball in the first. Tim struggled through 6 innings, 4 runs and a season high 9 hits...an OK outing for many but a markedly lifeless one for The Enchanter. There seems to be some concern over diminished velocity. Chris over at BayCityBall, as usual, has the best coverage:

"...the influx of innings that Lincecum will be throwing this year will be something to keep an eye on. He’s on the cusp of the injury nexus for young pitchers and the Giants need him to get through this season healthy. Without a healthy Tim in the rotation, things start to look real ugly real fast."


Amen to that brother.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Brother Bob:
This week our best starter was Zito. Yikes.
I found the matchup between Sanchez and Santana fascinating. There are so many similarities, even their names are alike. Lefties with neat goatees; Johann a couple shades darker in complexion. Also, he's an established superstar, as opposed to our young up-and-comer.
Sanchez was doing great for 3 innings,but then the wheels fell off, and of course the Giants' offense was utterly impotent.
I was so disappointed, this was a great opportunity for Sanchez to strut his stuff and he blew it.

JC Parsons said...

Both of our favorites took it in the teeth in the Big Apple. At least they were both beaten by big time hitters, Tim by Beltran and Sanchez by Delgado/Castro. That was the first time all year that Tim and Sanchez have lost back to back.
I really expect another shutout today. 0 fer NY. If that happens, they should tear the place down. At least the true identity of the team is coming to bear. ByeBye Brian.

Anonymous said...

The Lincecum game and the Sanchez game were similar, pitching analysis aside. In both cases, the Giants were out of the game by the time one run was scored. Lincecum gave up 4 runs in a somewhat shortened (6 ip) outing, but that could have been a victory on a normal team. Likewise, until the end of the game yesterday, when Yabu was clearly left in to mop up when he had nothing, we were three runs behind. And that was because of one pitch that was not terrible - it could have been thrown out of the strike zone, or it could have broken a bit better like Sanchez's previous pitch. These are both decent (not great) pitching performances for an absolutely impotent team.

One comment about young pitchers' injury nexus - it is based on numbers. I am just reading about Lincecum's mechanics in the Sports Illustrated Tim-jinx issue. It is pretty interesting, though cursory, but makes the point that mechanics is key to injuries, not just time or innings. Caution is of course warranted.