GAME SUMMARY:
The crisp play and winning ways of the last road trip continued back home, as our boys took down the Braves, 4-2. Tonight's offensive hero was the newly arrived Tyler Colvin, driving in three runs with a homer and a triple. But the big story was Tim Lincecum coming through with by far his best start so far.
TIM FACTS:
Start #8 Win! (3-2, 4.78)
7.2 innings 2 hits 1 runs 1 earned 4 walks 11 strikeouts 1 hr
Tim's roller coaster, off and on season took a lovely turn tonight. He was FABULOUS! Easily his best outing of the year. The only Brave to ever figure out Tim was B.J. Upton. The strike out total of eleven is classic Big Time Timmy Jim. I guess it was a bit predictable, after all, some of Timmeh's best ever performances have been against Atlanta. His highest K total (15) is against the Braves. And, of course, his first ever post season game was his unforgettable 14 K gem. They are a free swinging group, talented, lots of homers, but prone to the strikeout.
HIGH and/or LOWLIGHTS:
Pretty cool to have your first hit as a Giant land in McCovey Cove. Congrats Tyler Colvin. His later triple was probably even more important than the lovely splash hit. Welcome, dude.
5 comments:
Tim has that "swing-and-miss" stuff we talk about so much, it's hard to believe he CAN'T pitch well every time. He took a page from the Book of Kershaw and relied on his curveball and it was devastating. Let's hope it's an uptick in performance all season long.
When Colvin came up in 7th with two on I think most managers would have bunted and hoped for a sac fly and one run. Not Boch--he let Colvin swing away. Two-run triple broke the game open!
As I said before, he's a first-rounder. Could be the Giants found a nice diamond-in-the-rough.
What the team has been up to is exciting enough, but if Lincecum returns to greatness it will be amazing. This is fun.
Yes, Tim has had that swing and miss stuff, but it seems that he's been working on other things in earlier games and not utilizing that stuff as much. This game seems to be the first where he took advantage of his stuff.
Bochy noted in his after-game interview that it was "vintage" Timmy, as his secondary pitches were working, to go with his fastball.
Another quote I liked was Lincecum talking about how he still has his stuff and how he will use it, but now he has in his other pocket the ability to induce "crappy contact" when he needs to.
He now has four quality starts (per PQS) in his last six starts, which is the rate he was at when going good before, so he appears to be rounding into shape this season, though he still has too many hiccups to be elite.
But that don't matter, he is our 4th starter and we don't need him to be elite anymore, if he can be at least pretty good, our rotation will be almost impossible to overcome. If he returns to greatness, we are going to roll over teams and win the division.
Add in Vogelsong rounding into shape as well, and our rotation could soon be, for the first time I can recall, where there is no weak link in the rotation, Bumgarner, Cain, Hudson, Lincecum, Vogelsong.
We were almost there in 2011, but Sanchez was "only" average, plus the times before that with Zito in the rotation, he was about average too. But we saw what could happen with 5 starters locked in, when the rotation set that record late in 2010, late August, early September, forgot how many, but like 20 straight games with 3 runs or less given up, like 24-25 with 4 runs or less.
But if our starting five can continue this run - need Cain to join the party - for the rest of the season, the other team can't rest against us in any start, they will have to hump it up every day. With Zito or Dirty around, you knew the car could go off the road at any moment, and I guess you could say that about Timmy right now, but he seems to be working his way back.
That will wear on teams, facing so much pitching goodness, I think, particularly if we make the playoffs.
Yeah, Bochy is more of the Earl Weaver "let's win with the 3-run homer" type of manager.
Timmy also was able to locate his fastball last night, forcing swings rather than allowing batters to wait for balls out of the zone. Almost scary how much different he looked.
18 games.
I call it "The Streak™."
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/tgl.cgi?t=p&team=SFG&year=2010#137-154-sum
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