♫ U P R I G H T B A S E B A L L ◱

An interesting thought occurred to me as I was watching last night’s disappointing loss to the Rockies, maybe Tim Lincecum doesn’t want to be playing baseball right now.  Throughout his career, Lincecum bounces between seeming either calm and relaxed or somewhat worried, indifferent, or hurried on the mound.  There’s a look that he has been getting in his eyes more and more this season akin to a deer in the headlights which I’m sure many Giants fans have also noticed.  Although he got his third quality start in a row and pitched a fairly solid game while receiving literally no offensive support, it just didn’t seem like he wanted to be in front of 42,000+ people.

I’m not saying this in a vindictive or judgmental way and I’m not saying this in a “he should smoke some weed, bro” way either but I think Lincecum is at a point in his career where he really needs to take note of the reasons why he’s playing baseball and determine if it’s something he really wants to continue to do.  Of course that would mean tossing aside millions of dollars but if Tim is going to succeed again, he needs to do it on his own terms. 

This is all speculatory and based solely on my somewhat refined observational skills but I get the impression that Lincecum dreads his starts.  That may sound like a no brainer—even the greatest actors get varying degrees of stage fright before a show and fellow Giants starter, Ryan Voglesong, still refuses to talk to anyone before he pitches—but in his heyday, Lincecum was known for being a goofy and carefree guy before his starts.  He had fun with baseball and everything it brought, cracking jokes with his teammates and infamously eating Choco-Tacos before a few starts early on in his career.

There’s a much more frantic nature to the way Lincecum plays baseball now, his timing is erratic and his velocity dips and spikes across the game—last night I remember seeing him throw an 88 mile per hour fastball in the 3rd before throwing a 92 mile per hour fastball in the 6th.  As I’ve mentioned before, so much of Tim Lincecum’s performance is clearly mental.  Aspects of his game have suffered over the last two or three seasons, particularly his fastball velocity, but he still has the ability to strike guys out and he has taught himself new pitches to even himself out.

I think Lincecum needs to really take a deep breath, pursue psychoanalysis and work on pinpointing his true emotions to the game of baseball and how he can reintroduce fun in the game.

The Giants came up with a very respectable series split in St. Louis to finish their road trip 5-2.  Madison Bumgarner got penned for the loss today despite a very solid outing, allowing three runs on three hits and a walk with seven strikeouts over the course of six innings.  The third run came after a blown call when Jon Jay was called safe when stealing third.  The replays showed that Joaquin Arias got the tag down on Jay a good four inches before he reached the base but the umpire’s view was obscured by Arias and Allen Craig followed up with a sacrifice fly to score Jay. The final score was 3-1 as the Giants failed to cash in on a several opportunities throughout the game.  They didn’t look quite as fierce at the plate as they have been as of late but I find no reason to be concerned.  Adam Wainwright did a good job of mixing in his off speed pitches as he went through the Giants lineup for the second and third times before going to the fastball late in the count and it didn’t appear like any of the Gyros hitters were able to get a good reading of him.  Since the Dodgers have the day off, they picked up a half game on the Giants and now only reside a game out of the lead with each team slated to play 50 more games.

Jon Jay was almost a sure thing with a single for the Cardinals this series, going 10 for 15 and raising his BA from .284 to .308 in the process.  However, only one of Jay’s hits was for extra bases—a double off of Bumgarner which set up the opportunity for the controversial call at third today—and the Gyros were able to limit him to two runs during the series.

Games like this always make me wish I was somehow given the power to spread a few runs around throughout a series.  The Giants won with 14 to spare last night, laying the bat heavy on the Cardinals while Ryan Vogelsong gave a lights out performance.  Hunter Pence produced two big RBIs in his first two at bats when the game was still in question and Marco Scutaro came up with his third career grand salami in the top of the 9th to shore up the win and help the Giants beat the spread by 16.5 runs. 

Bruce Bochy’s new left handed toy, Jose Mijares, came into the game in the bottom of the 9th and although he allowed two base runners, he got out of the inning clean and finished off the shutout. The Giants picked up the Venezuelan born Mijares off of the waivers from Kansas City and put right handed reliever, Shane Loux, on the DL to free up a space on the 25 man roster.  This gives the Giants bull pen three solid lefties along with Jeremy Affeldt and Javier Lopez.  Lopez is more of a leftie specialist while Affeldt and right hander Brad Penny are probably the closet things the bull pen has to a long reliever although I wouldn’t want to see either of those guy pitch more than two innings.  From what I can put together about Mijares, he sort of falls between Lopez’s left hander dominance and Affeldt’s ability to take over for several innings if need be.  This leads me to imagine that Mijares will be the third leftie off of the bench but it still adds depth to the bullpen and gives Bochy the ability to play his favorite, three card monte-esque game of matching up pitchers against batters in the later innings.

One thing that I noticed and was particularly impressed by during this road trip was the Giants ability to get their lead off man safely on base to start each inning.  In Colorado, the lead off man reached safely 15 times out of 27 innings—.556—and in St. Louis, he reached 13 our of 36 innings—.361—for a grand total of 28 for 63—.444. The Giants also were impressive in the 1st and 9th innings of the games, scoring at least one run in the 1st inning of the first six games they played and scoring in the 9th in four games.  First inning runs are important on the road because it allows the starting pitcher to take the mound with the lead which helps to settle some of the pregame jitters. 

The Giants are set to face the Rockies again, this time at AT&T Park.  Since the All Star break, the Gyros are 4-6 at home—they swept the Triple-A Astros before being swept by the Dodgers and dropping three of four to the Mets after a strong road trip.  During the same period, the Giants are 9-4 on the road against some fairly contentious teams. 

Tim Lincecum will get things started for the Giants against fellow right hander, Tyler Chatwood.  The 22 year old starter had a decent outing by Rockies standards against the Giants on August 5, giving up one earned run on two hits and four walks in 3.1 innings pitched.  His ERA sits at 6.61 and his WHIP is at 1.96 so the Giants would do well to continue their offensive trend of getting the lead off man on base and scoring early, especially since the Rockies have an awkward four man starting rotation and they cap their starters at or around 75 pitches.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to wish you a Happy Lincecum Day tomorrow and the troubled right hander will be able to pick up his third straight win and quality start.  One thing that has gotten overlooked during his rough season is that Lincecum has still been able to register strikeouts, racking up 139 Ks which puts him in the top ten in the National League.  Lincecum’s post All Star break ERA is currently at 2.48 so I strongly feel like I’ll be writing a post in the coming weeks entitled “How Timmy Got His Groove Back.”  With a guy like Lincecum, the mental game plays so much into how he pitches and it’s been clear that he’s over thought his delivery and pitch selection.  I think it’s just a matter of getting comfortable with his velocity and his battery mate and he’ll find himself in the League’s elite pitching corps again.

A lovely thing to note is that the Dodgers lost their series against the Rockies, winning only one of three.  The Dodgers were completely blanked on Tuesday night which has to be embarrassing when the Giants put up 35 runs against the same team.  In the last week and a half, the Dodgers have done away with a lot of the older guys that had kept them competitive while Matt Kemp was out on two extended trips to the disabled list—Tony Gywnn Jr. and Bobby Abreu were designated for assignment and Juan Uribe was dropped down to the Minor Leagues-.  The hired guns that they’ve brought in have been fairly productive but they just weren’t able to get it done against the Rockies at home for whatever reason.

This weekend the Dodgers will face off against the Marlins on the road for Hanley Rameriz’s home coming and the floundering Diamondbacks will head home to face the Nationals after today’s series finale in Pittsburgh—they currently lead 6-3 in the top of the 8th and if they hold on, they will sit four games behind the Giants.

Last night the Giants finished off their fifth sweep of the 2012 campaign including a four game sweep of the Cubs that started off June.  Now they face the equally hot St. Louis Cardinals for a four game series at Busch Stadium.  The Cardinals are coming off of their own sweep against their divisional rivals, the Milwaukee Brewers and have won seven of their last ten games.  Since the All Star break both teams are 13-9 although the Giants lead the National League West while the Cardinals trail the Cincinnati Reds by seven games in the NL Central.  The Giants will face four, fairly solid right handed starters which is a shame since both Melky Cabrera and Buster Posey have been lighting it up against left handed pitching.  In mid May, the two teams split a two game series at AT&T Park.

The Giants pitching staff will face a tough St. Louis lineup which leads the National League in batting average (.277), On Base Percentage (.345), and On Base Plus Slugging Percentage (.781) but the Giants counter well, ranking in the top three in the NL in Batting Average Against (.238) and WHIP (1.26).  Matt Holilday, Yadier Molina, and David Freese all present a potential challenge to the Giants, ranking seventh through tenth in NL Batting Average whereas Melky Cabrera and Buster Posey will threaten the Cardinals pitchers, ranking first and sixth respectively.  Posey is hitting .545 with a home run, five RBIs, and a base on balls in two games against the Cardinals this season which are similar to his post All Star break numbers so hopefully he’ll be able to continue his streak.

The most compelling pitching match up of the series is tonight’s opener with a righty on righty battle between Matt Cain and Jake Westbrook.  Both pitchers are looking for their 11th wins of the season tonight and they both have similar numbers across the board on the season although Cain’s BAA is a good .080 lower than Westbrook’s.  The Giants will look for Cain to take the game into the latter innings as nearly the entire bullpen was called into the game last night.  As I noted in my last post, the Giants bullpen struggled against the Rockies and they needed five pitchers to record the final nine outs of yesterday’s win. 

Tomorrow, Barry Zito will face off against Lance Lynn who leads the Cardinals with 13 wins.  Zito, the lesser of the Giants lefties, is still putting up better than expected numbers although he was rocked by the Dodgers and the Mets at home in his last two starts.  Both teams got to Zito early and often with the Dodgers scoring seven earned runs in 5.1 innings and the Mets scoring six earned runs in 4.1 innings pitched.  His last quality start came against the Atlanta Braves on July 17 in which he pitched seven innings of shutout baseball while getting plenty of offensive support lead by Buster Posey.  That win sparked the Giants solid road trip.  Lance Lynn recently got shelled by the hapless Cubs at Wrigley Field, giving up six earned runs in five innings although the Cardinals rallied behind him and gave him the win.

Wednesday will bring Ryan Vogelsong to the mound against Joe Kelly who will be making his 11th Major League start since making his debut on June 10, a day after his 24th birthday.  Kelly is 2-4 with a 3.14 ERA and 1.40 WHIP and has pitched an average of 5.71 innings in his first ten starts.  Vogelsong’s last outing was fabulous up until the 7th inning when the Rockies started shelling him.  Knowing what I do about Vogelsong and his fierce competive spirit, I would imagine that he’ll come out looking to blow away the Cardinals hitters. As a side note, Vogelsong retook the pole position as National League ERA leader after Nationals pitcher, Jordan Zimmermann, gave up four runs in five innings on Saturday.

Madison Bumgarner will take on Adam Wainwright in the series closer on Thursday.  Wainwright’s ERA currently sits at 4.03 although he’s coming off of a one run, complete game against Milwaukee on Saturday.  Wainwright has been steadily dropping his ERA since the All Star break but he’s still far from his 2010 numbers when he won 20 games for the Cards.  Bumgarner is on a hot streak, giving up two or fewer runs and pitching six or more innings in each of his five starts since the All Star break although his record stands at 2-1 during that period.

Cardinal’s closer, Jason Motte, has 24 saves from 28 opportunities while presumed Gyros closer, Santiago Casilla has converted 24 of 30 chances but has a significantly higher WHIP, BAA, and ERA as any Giants fan could probably guess.  Hunter Pence hit a two run shot against Motte in his only at bat against him this season which represents two of the 14 earned runs Motte has given up all season.

Elsewhere in the National League West, the Dodgers start a three game home series against the Rockies who will hopefully give them a harder time than they gave the Giants over the weekend.  The Diamondbacks will also start a four game series against the Pirates at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.  The Pirates have an NL leading home record having won 33 of 49 games—the Cincinnati Reds have won three more than the Pirates but they have also lost four more.  The demonic Dodgers and the devilish Diamondbacks currently reside a half game and four games behind the Gyros respectively while the Padres are 14 games back and the Rockies are 20 back.

Earlier today the Giants finished off their fourth sweep of the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field which opened in 1995—the Rockies played at Mile High Stadium in 1993 and 1994.  Each of the three wins was fairly resounding and the Giants hitters came into the game with a chip on their collective shoulder with several of them having a rough go of it over the course of the last few weeks.  They scored 35 runs off 45 hits 17 walks.  Every player reached base safely in each game they received a plate appearance with the exception of Tim Lincecum today who still managed to get a crucial RBI early on in the game.

Ryan Vogelsong, Madison Bumgarner, and Tim Lincecum threw 18.1 innings with a 2.95 ERA and a 1.25 WHIP—and just a 1.00 ERA and a 1.06 WHIP if you exclude Vogelsong’s rough 7th inning on Friday night.  Together, the three starters stuck out 17 and walked eight.  Today, Lincecum was able to battle back after a tough 1st inning in which he threw 35 pitches.  However he still had trouble with his location throughout the game, walking five Rockies. 

Lincecum has been steadily improving since the All Star break with a couple of spotty performances thrown in here and there.  In his five starts since the All Star Game, Lincecum has won three games, a 2.48 ERA, a 1.22 WHIP, and lasted an average of 6.53 innings per start—the three wins double his 2012 total to six, he lowered his ERA from 6.42 to 5.43, his WHIP has dropped from 1.53 to 1.49, and raised his innings per start from 5.37 to 5.62.  I know that’s a bit number heavy so if that’s not your style, read the above as “he’s pitching much better than he was before.” 

As rosy a picture as I just painted for you, dear reader, not everything was perfect.  Collectively, the usually lights out bullpen had a 7.56 ERA during the series—allowing 7 runs in the 8.2 innings they pitched.  I won’t bother you with the other numbers/I don’t want to calculate them and ruin my mood but I can tell you that they aren’t great just by looking through the box scores and recalling the three games.

The Giants offense got the bullpen off the hook by scoring 22 of their 35 runs in the last three frames of each game.  As I mentioned earlier, Bruce Bochy’s pregame motivational speech on Friday supposedly touched on closing out games and that’s just what the Gyros hitters did.

Now everyone knows that the Rockies are struggling at his point in the season and aren’t exactly what one would consider an elite team but at the same time the Giants did exactly what they needed to do, you beat crap teams and you beat them badly to send a message to the rest of the League.

Tomorrow night the Gyros will start a four game series in St. Louis.  The Cardinals are looking to sweep the Brewers and are currently battling out a close game in Sunday’s night slot—they have a 1-0 lead going into the bottom of the 7th.  I’ll put together an in depth series preview tomorrow for your perusal, dear reader.

Side note: I generated all of the numbers in this post regarding Tim Lincecum and the series wide numbers.  Everything was triple checked but if it looks wrong, let me know and we’ll discuss.  I’d hate to throw incorrect numbers into the blogosphere.

Yes, dear reader, let us pour a libation to the baseball gods and thank them for our sweet fortunes.  I could write another post like yesterday’s, describing in minute detail the individual accomplishments and statistics of last night’s trouncing but I’ll keep the revelry as brief as possible and do my best to avoid another statistically driven post. 

That said, I do have to mention a few numbers, just to get them off of my chest.  Buster Posey is hitting .453 since the All Star break—34 for 75—and last night he hit his six home run since the break, number 16 on the season.  The Giants scored ten or more runs in their second consecutive game for the first time since a late August series in 2010 against Dusty Baker’s Cincinnati Reds.  For the second straight night, all starting position players got a hit and the two players off of the bench—Brandon Belt and Gregor Blanco—went 1-2 with a sacrifice fly and a run scored. 

Madison Bumgarner threw a fantastic game to get his 12th win of the season, striking out seven Rockies in six innings and only allowing six base runners.  The bullpen was a bit on the shaky side of things though, giving up five runs in the final three frames of the game—one might say that our bullpen looked “Rockie” last night or perhaps they got “Rockied”… I don’t know which makes for the better pun, dear reader.  But, like last night, the Giants refused to take their foot off the gas pedal late in the game and went for the jugular, scoring four of their own runs in the 8th and Angel Pagan hit a solo shot in the 9th to keep the game out of reach. 

Pagan has been red hot in the lead off spot in the last two games, going 7-10 with six runs and four RBIs.  He seems much more comfortable hitting lead off than he does out of the six spot or anywhere else where Bruce Bochy puts him and I would venture to say that he has momentarily regained his spot at the head of the lineup.

Okay, now that last night is out of the way, allow me to briefly preview today’s game which starts in a touch over two hours.

Buster Posey is going to get the start at first base so Hector Sanchez will be catching Tim Lincecum today.  The Rockies starter, Christian Friedrich, has been pulled with what sounds to be a season ending back injury so the Giants will likely face Tyler Chatwood who was called up from Double-A Tulsa yesterday.  Chatwood is 1-1 with a 7.62 ERA in seven relief appearances for the Rockies this season.  In the minors, he’s gone 0-2 with a 5.79 ERA in nine Triple-A starts and 1-1 with a 3.00 ERA in four Double-A starts this season.  Hopefully the Giants can get to the 22 year old right hander early and force the Rockies to go to their battered bullpen  by the 4th or 5th inning—keep in mind that the Rockies have a silly four man rotation and starters are removed from the game after they have thrown 75 pitches so this isn’t an unattainable goal, especially against a 22 year old who hasn’t thrown a big league pitch since July 5.  Chatwood was drafted out of high school in the second round of the 2008 MLB Draft with the 74th overall pick.  The Angels brought him up last season and he had 25 starts with two relief appearances, posting a 6-11 record with a 4.75 ERA and a 1.76 WHIP.  The Angels traded him to the Rockies last November for catcher, Chris Iannetta.

I have faith in Timmy today.  Although his worst start of his career came in April at Coors Field, I sense that he’s regaining his confidence and having sat and watched his fellow starters Ryan Vogelsong and Madison Bumgarner receive 27 runs in support will hopefully allow him to loosen up and bring out the jovial, smiling Timmy that we all know so well.

Thank the mysterious baseball gods for last night’s offensive explosion.  Watching the Giants roller coaster their way through  fantastic road play followed quickly by an exasperating home stay of dismal baseball and then follow up with a 16-4 win on the road makes me feel like Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part 3—“Just when I thought I was out they puuuuuuull me back in.”  Every player who had an at bat had a hit and Gregor Blanco managed to score twice without an official at bat off of a walk and a throwing error from the pitcher after a well executed sacrifice bunt.  Hunter Pence got a ceremonial first hit in a Gyros uniform in the top of the 8th but by then the game was already out of hand.  Even starting pitcher, Ryan Vogelsong, got into the mix with a hit and a run in his three at bats.  Buster Posey had Matt and I singing “Hail to the Buster”—lyrics to come later—over and over with his four hits including his three run zinger to put the game out of question.  Angel Pagan was a homer shy of hitting the cycle and drew two walks, scoring four times.  That’s the sort of production you love to see from a lead off man and coming into the season I was hoping we would see more performances like this from the antithetically named Puerto Rican.  

Ryan Vogelsong pitched a heckuva game up until the 7th inning where he gave up four runs and bloated his formally Major League leading ERA from 2.22 to 2.38 which really ticked off the always intense competitor—he scowled from the dugout throughout the rest of the game despite the firework show taking place in front of him.  Vogelsong now sits second in NL ERA leaders and third in the Majors behind the Nationals pitcher Jordan Zimmermann and the Angels ace, Jered Weaver who have a 2.28 and a 2.29 ERA respectively.  Still, Vogelsong got the win—his ninth of the season—and struck out seven on only two walks and allowed five hits, four of which came in his meltdown of a 7th inning where he only recorded one out, a sacrifice fly from Carlos Gonzalez after a lead off triple from Dexter Fowler.

This destructive win came against former Giants pitcher, Jonathan Sanchez, who was facing the Giants for the first time since he was traded to the Kansas City Royals for Melky Cabrera in what may go down as the most uneven trade in Major League history—the Royals also got Minor Leaguer, Ryan Verdugo who has a 3.77 ERA and an 8-3 record in Triple A this season.  Cabrera had two RBIs and two runs off of a single hit, a walk, and a base on error in the first inning. 

Matt always points out that Ryan Vogelsong is indirectly responsible for that trade and I agree with him.  If Vogelsong had not come out, guns a-blazing, when Zito was injured last season, Brian Sabean would probably have felt compelled to keep the now struggling left hander.  As it was, Sanchez only threw 67 pitches—34 balls and 33 strikes—and three innings thanks to Colorado’s innovatively ill advised four man rotation.  The rotation limits the starters to 75 pitches per outing and is probably the worst idea I’ve ever heard of, especially if one of your starters is Jonathan Sanchez who has made an art of throwing 35 pitches in the 1st inning before settling down as the game progresses.

An important note to make is that Giants skipper, Bruce Bochy, held a pregame meeting with the team where he supposedly talked about playing the game from start to finish and refusing to take the foot off of the throttle in the latter innings.  Assuming this was the topic of Bochy’s meeting, the team certainly listened to him, scoring 13 times in the last three innings—four in the 7th, six in the 8th, and three in the 9th—to pick up Vogelsong and keep the game out of reach.  Bochy rarely calls together such meetings with a notable exception around this time in the 2010 campaign—I’m not saying, I’m just saying.

This evening’s game is a match up of southpaws with Madison Bumgarner and Jeff Francis taking the mound.  Bumgarner is in search of his 12th win of the season while Francis is looking to improve upon his 3-3 record and his 5.43 ERA.  Francis has a 7-6 record and a 4.83 ERA against the Giants and has won three of his last four starts against the boys from the ‘Sco at Coors Field.

Right now my morale as a Giants fan has been restored as has the team’s run differential which was actually in the red by three heading into last night’s game despite its then 56-49 record—something I did not want to mention or even think about yesterday.  I have faith in Mad-Dawg tonight and I think Timmy Lincecum—who’s in line for the start tomorrow against TBD—is on the up and up.  My prediction? We’ll be able to break out the brooms on Sunday, knock on wood.