Let's start with the positves from last night...it won't take long. Tim Lincecum was picked up by his offense and his worst outing of the year did not result in him getting the loss. So, Tim remains undefeated in the month of May for his career. A five run outburst featuring back-to-back homers by Uribe and Bowker and a huge Huff double was a thing of beauty. Umm, I guess Bochy's lineup move with Tim batting eighth was a positive, at least it gave the announcers something to talk about.
The negatives: It would be easy to say that the bullpen ONCE AGAIN blew a potential victory for Tim and his record should be a perfect 9-0. That is a fact but I think we all know Lincecum did not really deserve to win. For the first time this year he did not deliver a quality start and if he had we probably win. Lots of 5's in his line score: FIVE innings, FIVE runs, FIVE hits, FIVE walks and FIVE (plus one) strikeouts. Like last time, his command of his fastball was putrid...but this time he combined walks with homers and a triple. Oh yeah, it was the FIFTH inning that was his undoing. Kind of a tough night for a guy that wears number "55."
Isn't baseball wonderfully weird? In a game filled with power hitting, the final score was determined by a wild pitch. Sigh.
I fear we may start a real tough time here. We will learn a lot about our chances in the next few days. I've always said that the key to baseball is how well you bounce back from failure. I guess we need to count on Zito to right the ship....did I really just say that??
5 comments:
And Zito is pitching against his old club!
The D-Backs have a seriously potent lineup, but some seriously bad pitching. I really hoped that would give us a chance to get some hits and put up some wiggly numbers, and, by god, it did. 11 hits, 7 runs, 6 XBH--I was proud of the lads. Too bad our pitchers couldn't deliver. Even the Best Pitcher in the Universe has a bad game now and then. Our bullpen was shaky, too, but that is a tough, tough lineup to get through, esp. in that hitters yard.
AZ has allowed 252 runs in 42 games or SIX runs per game!! Ouch.
Oakland has allowed 185 runs, or 4.4 per game. Their 4.25 FIP puts them square in the middle of the AL. They've played very well at home, winning 15 of 24. They don't hit well (.306 wOBA is just a tick better than the bottom-dwelling Mariners), so I think our pitchers should control the action this weekend.
The thing I've noticed about Tim is that he rarely seems awesome in the 1st inning. He mixes up what he's using, and often throws out of the strike zone on purpose. In other words, he doesn't worry about "announcing his presence with authority" by trying to blow high hard ones past everyone. Therefore it's often hard to tell how well he's going to do until the middle of the game. Usually by then he's striking half the batters out, especially when he needs to.
A slow start also seems to be a problem with the offense, which was a big part of Bochy's rationale for the weird lineup. Pablo needs to hit in the first. It is good timing to do the pitcher eighth right before Interleague play. I assume this means that Torres will bat ninth when we use a DH this weekend. We'll see.
The game made me sad. It's weird, Bochy actually had good ideas for the lineup in this sort series. Batting Pablo fourth, batting Tim eighth, putting John Bowker in there. But it's weird, whenever he actually puts up a fine lineup we seem to lose.
Last year at this time, the team was 19-22. I see progress in that respect.
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