Friday, May 27, 2011

Overlooked Tim

When Tim Lincecum pitches, I get to post about him. That's how it works. He pitches, I gush about The Freak. He pitches, I spill out the Fun Tim Facts. Hell, quite often I fail to mention another friggin' member of the team! And to tell you the truth, sometimes he hardly needs them. Not on this night.


Brandon Crawford, in his first MLB game, carried the Giants to a much needed victory over the worthy Brewers. Repeating a feat accomplished by only five others ( including the incomparable Bobby Bonds ), Crawford drilled a grand slam into the Giants bullpen in the seventh inning. That sent the Giants ahead and gave the win to Lincecum (5-4) after a quality, yet flawed performance. Timmeh was pretty good (game score 57)

7 innings 6 hits 3 runs o walks 4 strikeouts


but he didn't seem to have the usual zip on his pitches. After hanging a lifeless slider to Weeks for a two run homer, I feared the worst. Down by three and I was thinking it may as well be a hundred. We seemed dead in the water.



Then, Ol' Bonehead got himself thrown out after arguing a close play at home. Maybe it meant nothing, but we did score 5 runs in the next two inning to grab the lead. This from a team that had not scored a single run since the you-know-what happened. Did it work? Can a managerial move "fire up" a justifiably dazed team?



Or was it just a fluke of nature named Brandon Crawford? Sure hope this particular fluke becomes the regular SS for the next decade or so. Stranger things have happened.

3 comments:

M.C. O'Connor said...

I was screaming and babbling when he hit it. It was a great moment.

Tim was tough. Yeah, it could have easily been a loss. He had a rough go but never let it get out of hand. After Crawford hit the slam it was like a shark smelling blood. Tim is a beast even when he "doesn't have his good stuff."

Fielder got thrown out at the plate in the 8th. He was dead to rights and should not have been sent. He whacked Whiteside anyway. That's bull shit. I like Fielder, he's an entertaining and talented guy. But the hit was B.S. He was out by a mile. That kind of thing is gratuitous.

Ray Fosse on Comcast after the game said he felt Cousins' hit on Posey was unnecessary and should not have happened. He hoped baserunners would not take shots at the catcher when they had a lane to the base. But he was aghast at a question about a rule change. It seems like he wants to have his cake and eat it, too. Flattening Posey was wrong, but legal. Players shouldn't do it, but a rule is the wrong solution. OK, Ray. Whatever. MLB will change the rule when a kid gets paralyzed. Until then, open season.

Brother Bob said...

Hooray for Brandon Crawford! I've been reading about this kid for a long time. The pitch he hit out was a good one, a curve ball which ended up below the strike zone, and the kid calmly reached down and stroked it like there was nothing to it.

Zo said...

The Chronic today cites Sabean as stating that the catching job is Whiteside's - they are not looking to trade. Benjie is not an attractive option, nor did he leave on the best of terms. The words "Jorge Posada" and "hitting catcher" do not belong in the same sentence. They will simply have to have some hitters step up. Hope Crawford can continue to help in that regard. Brandon Belt, too. He's not in the line-up today as per Baggs, but look for him as a pinch hitter.