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| Picture is the actual size of Tim Lincecum |
This is where I analyze Tim Lincecum, and make no sense:
In the 5th inning of Saturday night's game against the Mariners , Tim Lincecum was in a jam, with the Giants leading 4-2. Mariner runners were on 2nd and 3rd with one out, and Ichiro was at the plate. Then this happened.
The runner from third came into score, and Ryan Theriot had no play anywhere. Side note: despite his declining age, Ichiro could probably beat me in a race with his legs tied together and then cut off, which renders the first part of the analogy completely useless. That's not the point. This is the point:
The white thing above Lincecum's glove is what the common folk call, a "baseball". It is 3 or 4 inches above his glove. Come with me to Imaginary World for a sec, and pretend Lincecum was Mr. Fantastic and caught the silly white baseball. The runner holds at third and Lincecum records the out at 1st. He is left unscathed and everybody is like "omg like Tim is totes back, i luv u Timmy <3, ur hair is awesome, super kewl necklace ;) "
In reality, he was left with runners on 1st and 3rd with 1 out in the inning. He then threw a wild pitch to the next batter, allowing a 2nd run to score from third in the inning, totaling his ERs for the game to 4. That would be Lincecum's final run tally on the day, 5 IP and 4 ER. If he caught that baseball, perhaps he would have settled down, pitched to the next batter differently because there were 2 outs and not have thrown a wild pitch.
Now that we know how the entire inning unfolded, this is how the inning went officially up until the wild pitch:
- Dustin Ackley hit a bouncing ball in the hole between first and second into right field for a single.
- John Jaso walked.
- Brendan Ryan bunted the runners over.
- Ichiro bounced the ball up the middle for an infield single. Mariners score.
- Lincecum threw a wild pitch to Chris Wells. Mariners score.
Translated into what the Mariner hitters actually did:
- Dustin Ackley hit a weenie bouncer that barely got by Brandon Belt, who was sleeping.
- John Jaso didn't do anything and reached base.
- Brendan Ryan hit the ball 4 feet.
- Ichiro used dark magic to get the ball an inch over Lincecum, then laughed. Mariners score.
- Chris Wells stands. Mariners score.
With a tad of hyperbole mixed in, that was the Mariner 2 run rally, and what changed a Lincecum start from giving up 2 ER in 5 in. to giving up 4 ER in 5 in. The first two runs given up by Lincecum came via 2 home runs in the 1st innings. That's not concerning, because home runs were never the problem, they haven't plagued him like his command in the stretch has. After the 2 run 1st inning, Lincecum was lights out from the 2nd to 4th innings, with most of those pitches coming out of the wind up.
The killer inning was the one above, and the Mariners hit one ball out of the infield, which was a seeing eye ground ball. I could have done what some of the Mariners did, and looked handsome while doing it.The problem wasn't how the Mariners hit Lincecum, but how Lincecum located pitches against them out of the stretch. The Jaso walk, along with multiple 3 ball counts throughout the inning was the concerning part. He lost the dominant feel of the strike zone he had during innings 2 3 and 4.
All that said, any one of those balls hit in play could have been outs. Ackley pulls his ball a little more, it's right to Belt. I think I've covered Ichiro's hit, which Madison Bumgarner could have caught while buying a cow for his wife. The inning very well could have gone the other way. Plus, Lincecum did things like this yesterday.
He still has work to do out of the stretch motion. But he's not as far as some people think he is. However, I said the same thing in May, which proves I have no clue what I'm typing and in reality I'm just glad to be typing coherent sentences with words. Small victories are what's life is all about.
Disclaimer: If Tim Lincecum is bad next start, an evil demon wrote this post.
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