Tag Archives: Tim Lincecum

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Linceblog: Tim Lincecum reportedly done for season. Giants too?

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The  Freak in healthier times dangled the ball and had a motion that would turn his whole body into a flame-throwing pitching machine.

But now with his health in question, Tim Lincecum–the best Major League Baseball player ever with Filipino blood– is done for the season, according to multiple reports.

And it could signal the end of his career  as a San Francisco Giant.

Lincecum, 31, a two-time National League Cy Young Award winner for being the best pitcher in the game, four-time All-Star, and a three-time World Series Champion, is being shutdown for the rest season, San Francisco Giants general manager Bobby Evans told the Chronicle.

Lincecum has been recovering from a hip injury and sought medical treatment on Wednesday to see if surgery may be required.

I saw Lincecum last week and tried to talk to him, but with headphones on, he was riding a white motorized rover-style scooter and zipped away.

Lincecum will be a free agent in 2016 and is likely to have pitched his last inning as a Giant.

That would be hard to fathom for faithful Filipino American fans, and others, who looked on Lincecum as their special Giants hero.

Picked tenth overall in the 2006 draft, Lincecum has been the face of the franchise for much of his nine seasons and compiled a 108-83 record, with a 3.61 ERA.

The Giants are known to reward their heroes for past efforts. But Lincecum this year is being paid $18 million.

Once his health is right, Lincecum may want to test the free-agent market, but it’s unlikely he’ll command from other teams whatever the Giants might offer him to keep the fan-base happy.

Then again, the Giants got rid of Mays and brought him back. Baseball is strange that way. I could envision Lincecum trying Seattle, his home base, and a new league.

And then coming back to the Giants at the end.

But the most important thing now is his health. His hips were good enough for the motorized monorover. But just not ready for an MLB playoff drive.

Do they have Tommy John surgery for a pitcher’s hips?

As for the Giants, they may not be good enough for a last minute playoff drive. Three one-run defeats in a row to the Dodgers made for great baseball, but were heartbreaking.

The three games embodied the frustration of an entire season.  The Giants didn’t catch many breaks in the LA series and ended up falling just short. That could be the way the season ends, unless the disabled list clears and the Giants can muster one major push in September. The Giants with the second Wild Card last year have always been masters in “Just In Time.”

There may still be time. But they’ll need some luck too.

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Emil Guillermo’s Linceblog: (updated) Tim had it a little bit, the Giants not at all; Bad mojo extends through Sunday. But Pirates start week with pleasant memory.

Tim Lincecum looked like he had his stuff.  Especially after the first inning when he induced two ground ball outs and struck out Atlanta’s Freddie Freeman.

As Lincecum walked back to the dugout, maybe he should have kept walking.

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He had 5 strikeouts after 4 innings, and had at most 1 walk. But the Braves were hitting them were they ain’t, scratching out one run each in innings 2-5. Suddenly, the Braves were up 4-0 and Lincecum’s home scoreless streak–which  had been at 22 innings before the game, the longest active scoreless  streak in the Majors– was a distant memory.

Lincecum was done after 4 1/3 innings, with this line: 8 hits, 4 runs, all earned, 4 BB, 5 Ks, and an ERA of 3. He threw just 83 pitches, 63 for strikes.

Close enough maybe for the Giants, the best team in baseball in May, to mount a comeback?

But the difference was Braves pitcher Williams Perez, who in his third major league gets his first win.

The 24-year-old right-hander had thrown five scoreless innings against  the Dodgers in LA last Monday.  On this night he topped it with 7 scoreless against the Giants at AT&T.

Perez scattered four hits, walked 4, struck out 3.

He had the Giants number more than Lincecum had the Braves where he wanted them.

After the game, Lincecum admitted he was pressured by the Braves leadoff hitters. “They had me working out of the stretch a lot, taking an extra base as well. Stealing a couple of bases definitely put some pressure on me and I had to make better pitches in those scenarios. They put some pretty good swings on some pretty good pitches.”

That they did. And the Giants didn’t.

Surprisingly, the Giants did have 8 hits and left 11 on bases.  But they never seemed to be really in this game offensively.

The Braves were, and finished with 8 runs, 14 hits.

With the season about  a 1/3 done, this is a game best forgotten by all.

But it was a bobble-head night.

UPDATE:

Whatever ailed Lincecum and the Giants on Saturday continued on through Sunday. Bumgarner looked good, until he gave up that homer to ex-teammate Uribe. The Giants seemed to come back on a Joe Panik home run. But homers by Panik, Belt and Crawford just weren’t enough. A blown save by Casilla, an error by Crawford, and the little things add up to a second loss to Atlanta.

Next, the Pittsburgh  Pirates.

Last time the two teams met was last year in October. It was the wild Wild Card game, one game, sudden death, winner takes on the Nats.  Bumgarner was dominant. Crawford hit a grand slam.  That’s the memory you live on.  You forget this past weekend.

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Emil Guillermo’s Linceblog: It’s Timmy Day again at the ball park

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Giants fans still look forward to every Lincecum start. Especially Filipino baseball fans the world over, as Lincecum remains the best ever-part Filipino baseball player to play in the Majors.

Saturday night the two-time Cy Young Award winner makes his 10th start of the season, and what a season.

He’s back to the Timmy of old at 5-2, and a 2.56 ERA in nine starts.

He looks good for tonight. Last year he was 2-0 against tonight’s opponents, the Braves with an ERA of 1.32.

The Giants overall just look good these days. If pace makes the race, they’ve reversed the trend of “fast start, lousy May” of previous years (remember 2013?). Now it’s lousy start, strong May, stronger June?

They’ve won seven of their last 8 at home. The Giants are hitting, fielding, pitching.

And now they’ve overtaken the Dodgers to be first in the NL West.

Can the defending world champs make it last?