Well, that was encouraging and troubling all at once.
On one hand, you’ve got the Giants doing the comeback dance and proving that they can get some runs with their offense.
On the other hand, the one player who could be either the one who puts the Giants over the top, or the rock who sinks the ship, is struggling quite a bit.
After a five-run second inning, the broadcasters started talking about heart, and how good it was that Lincecum came back from that to throw four more innings and give up just one more run. And, it was. The Rockies ended up flailing quite a bit. But he still had a five-run second inning, which is only ever going to sound good if you stack it against Matt Cain’s fourth inning on Sunday.
The good news for the two-time Cy Young winner is that his splitfinger and slider are working very well. The splitfinger in particular was devastating to the Rockies hitters.
The problem is, the fastball is going the wrong way. And if he can’t throw his fastball for strikes, he’ll never not be in trouble.
From the TV cameras, most of Lincecum’s fastballs have gained movement, and they’re sliding towards the right-handed batter’s box. And it seems that Timmy has no control over it. If he tries to throw it straight, it cuts out of the zone. If he tries to compensate, he throws it too far the other direction. And hitters are seeing this. Few batters are sitting fastball. Troy Tulowitzki looked like he was sitting on a first-pitch slider, which is a rare first pitch for a Non-Romo pitcher. But Lincecum was throwing it because he couldn’t do anything with his fastball.
In two starts, Lincecum has thrown 11 innings and has 11 strikeouts and 11 walks. That’s way too many walks, obviously.
Hopefully, if it’s just fixing a fastball, he can figure it out. Breaking pitches are always harder to tweak. But he’d better hurry up, because he no longer has the excuse of it being one bad year. It’s going to become two bad years in front of free agency.
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