Lincecum finally finds Momen-TIM

By Art Spander
 
SAN FRANCISCO — The sign is small but poignant, pasted on the door of the small cabinet where Tim Lincecum keeps items above his locker. It’s in two different colors for obvious emphasis, but here we’ll depict it in lower case and capitals, “momenTIM.”
  
That’s what he’s been searching for, trying to regain the style and domination that won two Cy Young Awards, that helped the Giants win two World Series — even if he was a reliever in the second one, 2012.
   
That’s what his ball club was hoping for, waiting for.
  
And on a Tuesday night at AT&T Park that may have been a breakthrough but at the least was the sort of performance he has produced in his best of times — the best of Tims, if you will — Lincecum woke up more than a few echoes as well as the 196th straight sellout crowd, 41,981.
  
After giving up a first-inning home run to dead center by Edwin Encarnacion that surely brought thoughts of “Here we go again,” Lincecum gave up only one more hit and no more runs, San Francisco defeating the Toronto Blue Jays, 2-1.
   
Lincecum had lost his last three starts, had, in order, been responsible for allowing six earned runs against the Rockies, then four earned runs against the Rockies, then last week five earned runs against the Athletics.
 
More than a hint had been offered about Lincecum taking his unpredictability — well, he was predictable for his failings — and his $20 million salary to the bullpen as, yikes, a middle-inning reliever.
  
He wasn’t thinking that way. Neither was Giants manager Bruce Bochy, publicly, although Bochy refused to confirm or deny that Lincecum would make what would be his next regular start, Sunday at Arizona. The way balls fly out of Chase Field in Phoenix, well, San Francisco probably would be better using Chad Gaudin.
   
Desperate times — and the Giants had dropped five of their previous seven — demand desperate measures. But after Tuesday night, with Lincecum retiring 14 in a row at one stretch, striking out six and walking only one, there is considerably less desperation around Willie Mays Plaza.
 
“We needed that,” Bochy said of Lincecum’s pitching. Did they ever. A team with a collective earned run average of 4.15 (after Tuesday night) and not much of an offense had to find something in which to believe. They think they’ve found it.
 
“That’s the Timmy we know,” contended Bochy. Well, the Timmy we knew back yonder, the Timmy who didn’t get crushed by a three- or four-running inning, the Timmy who got the ball over the plate.
 
“His pitches were crisper,” said Bochy, who as he addressed the media appeared more relaxed than before the game. “He had great stuff. This is something he can build. Even when he had bad games, he had good stuff. Last year he was out of rhythm. That hasn’t been the problem this year.”
  
Whatever the problem was or is, Lincecum, after the fine way he pitched, still had only a 4-5 record with a somewhat astronomical 4.75 ERA.  Of course, it was 5.12 before his brilliance against the Blue Jays.
  
“This should do a lot for his confidence,” said the manager. “This game, that’s more our style, good pitching and good defense. We got it done.”
  
Indeed. For a second straight game, the Giants — who, with more than 40 errors for the season, have been mishandling grounders and throws like the Bad News Bears — didn’t make a single error. Physical or mental.
   
Lincecum was pleased but not much more. One game doesn’t atone for what had preceded it, although as Bochy reminded this is the direction the pitcher and the ball club want to head.
 
“It feels good,” confided Lincecum, “but I’m not jumping up and down. (Wednesday) is another day for work.”
  
Since his last start, seven days earlier, Lincecum said he worked and worked, attempting to make certain his fastball, the key to his repertoire, found the edges of the plate, strikes that were virtually unhittable and not pitches that either were down the middle or wide.
  
“I worked my fastball to both sides of the plate,” said Lincecum. “That was the big thing. That opened things for my other pitches. I was hitting my spots more often, more consistently.”
  
What Andres Torres, the Giants left fielder, hit was a two-run home in the second that turned out to be all the runs San Francisco would score and would need. Torres also made a couple of excellent catches off deep balls in the fourth, one against the fence in the corner.
  
“Not easy plays to make,” said Lincecum. But plays that are made when good pitches are made and all the pieces fit together almost perfectly. “The rhythm was there, and I was mechanically sound. That makes just throwing the pitches the only factor.”
   
If the factor that matters most.

‘Pride involved’ in Giants’ win over A’s

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — The man never deals in extremes. Well, almost never. Bruce Bochy is the essence of composure. His words carry the reassurance of someone who understands the wonderful — and painful — unpredictability of baseball, a game of fortune as well as skill.
   
Yet Bochy realized, as did so many others, that his San Francisco Giants were on an edge, faced with as many questions as they had problems, faced with the secondary issue of losing dominion over the Bay Area as well as losing another game to a team unrelentingly determined to claim the territory for themselves.
    
Three in a row the Giants had dropped to the Oakland Athletics, and suddenly the fourth game, the last game on the schedule between them this season of 2013, became enormous. For the Giants.
  
“I thought (Thursday) was really critical,” Bochy conceded not long after the Giants did at last beat the A’s. “We had to find a way to win this game. There was pride involved in there.”
   
They won, 5-2, won at home, at AT&T Park, where they usually win but lost, 9-6, Wednesday night after losing Monday and Tuesday at Oakland.
  
They won because Barry Zito was able make just enough of the right pitches at the right time, after making seemingly far too many wrong ones. They won because the big hit, absent of late, a two-run double, was delivered by Brandon Belt in the sixth inning. They won because the bright sunshine and light wind of an all-too-typical late spring afternoon by the Bay caused havoc for A’s fielders.
   
They won, and then they bused to the airport for an immediate trip to St. Louis, where Friday they open a series against the Cardinals, arguably the best team in the majors — or anywhere else.
  
“And if this game had gotten away from us,” said Bochy, “it would have been a very long flight.”
    
He meant mentally, but you knew that, with a lot of doubt and confusion, maybe the Giants would be wondering what had happened, the way their fans — and there were 41,250 of them, the 195th straight sellout — would be wondering what had happened.
  
Pitching failures, injuries, illness. And losses in eight of their previous 12 games, including the three against the A’s. These were the Giants, the defending World Series champions? Yes. And no.
   
A.J. Griffin, who as Zito grew up in San Diego, pitched beautifully for Oakland. He didn’t give up a hit through three innings, gave up only one through five. “Great, hit the spots,” Bochy said of the opponent. “A great curve ball. Good command.”
  
Then the manager, a onetime catcher, made the ultimate observation of the sport, to wit, “The pitcher on the mound sets the tone.”
   
It was true for Griffin. It was no less true for Zito who, like some medieval knight trapped in a maze, kept finding the escape route.
  
In the first, the A’s had runners on second and third with nobody out. And didn’t score. In the second, they had runners on first and second with two outs and scored only a run. In the fifth, they had runners on first and second with one out and didn’t score.
  
“The key was we didn’t get down the way we had the last few games,” said Bochy. “Barry kept dodging bullets. He was amazing. He made pitches when he had to. The A’s are a tough team, a good team. We needed this game.”
  
Zito turned 35 two weeks ago. He’s been in the majors since 2000. He won a Cy Young Award, with the A’s. He’s been booed by Giants fans. He’s been cheered by Giants fans. He hardly needed anyone giving him an explanation of the game’s importance. Or his performance.
 
“Way too many walks,” said Zito. Six, to be specific, in six innings. Actually in five, because in the sixth, he retired the A’s in order for the only inning. “I was able to come up with stuff when I had to.”
   
Too many walks, very few hits, three, all to Coco Crisp. Zito, as Bochy put it, was Houdini, a magician, making base runners disappear, or at least keeping them stranded.
  
“Pitching is not always about location,” Zito reminded. It’s about speed and effectiveness and — when a batter misses a fat one — about fortune. It’s about courage, about, as the saying goes, hanging in there.
   
“This was a big series,” agreed Zito. “Big crowds in both parks. It was nice for us to take one.”
   
It was essential.
  
“These games are fun,” said Belt, the lefty who hit the lefty — reliever Hideki Okajima. “They bring a lot of energy for both clubs. We did just enough to win the ball game.”
  
Which is all that counts.

Not the debut Giants rookie wanted

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — There was no magic. The Michael Kickham debut wasn’t Hall of Fame stuff, wasn’t even enough to get the San Francisco Giants a win.
   
These are the majors. These guys are the best. “Mistakes here,” conceded Kickham, “are magnified.”
    
For an individual. For a team.
  
The Giants are not doing very much right these days. Across the Bay from their home park, at the O.co Coliseum, against the Athletics, they’ve done everything wrong.
    
So the A’s made it two in a row over the Giants, one in a row over the rookie Kickham up from the minors, beating San Francisco, 6-3, Tuesday night. That follows a 4-1 win Monday.
   
The best team in Northern California at the moment, and maybe for a period longer than that, is Oakland. The A’s have won five in a row, 10 of their last 11.
  
The Giants are the defending World Series champions, but that was then, this is now, and now is a team whose strength, starting pitching, is no longer its strength. And whose weakness, offense, is magnified.
  
Angel Pagan, the table setter, the leadoff man, is ailing. Without him in the lineup the Giants seem flat, the middle of the order ineffective. Pablo Sandoval, with the flu or a virus, something keeping from his best, was 0-for-3, and is 2 of his last 21. Buster Posey didn’t have a hit in either game at Oakland.
  
“We got guys struggling at the plate,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said in a statement impossible to deny. “Our offense is not scoring runs. Give their pitchers credit.”
  
The A’s starting pitcher Tuesday night, when again Oakland sold out the restricted-seat Coliseum, was Jarrod Parker. He gave up a run in the first and another in the sixth. Two runs allowed in seven innings.
  
Giants pitching used to do that. A’s pitching is doing it now.
  
“It was exciting catching him and watching him,” Derek Norris said of Parker. “He’s a potential Cy Young winner.”
   
So Norris was a bit carried away. That is allowable. He hit a two-run homer off Kickham in the second. And he was superb at the most important job for any catcher, making sure his own pitcher is in control.
  
The interleague series goes west Wednesday and Thursday, if not very far, to the other side of the bridge, San Francisco, where the Giants have a winning record, as opposed to the losing one they have on the road, where they’ve dropped seven out of eight.
   
Tim Lincecum starts for the Giants, and as things go these days that’s hardly a sure thing. He’ll probably last longer than Kickham, whose contract was purchased from Triple-A Fresno only hours before his first pitch Tuesday. He’s the fill-in for Ryan Vogelsong. He went 2 1/3 innings. He’s not the savior.
 
“He showed really good stuff early,” said Bochy. Yeah, like one inning, the first, when the 24-year-old Kickham retired the A’s on eight pitches. Wow! And then whoops.
  
A strikeout to open the second, after which Oakland’s Jed Lowrie singled. Then a strikeout. But on a 3-1 count, Norris smashed one into the left field seats.
   
“It was a decent pitch,” said Kickham. “But it came on a hitter’s count.”
    
And the hitter hit, but if Madison Bumgarner can’t beat the A’s — although Monday he didn’t pitch badly — it’s difficult to fault Kickham for not beating the A’s.
    
“His stuff was impressive,” said Bochy, maybe trying to make himself feel as good about the defeat as Kickham. “He just started missing by a little bit. A couple of mistakes.”
   
One, insisted Bochy, after the Giants lost for the fourth time in six games, was not the decision to elevate Kickham to the big-league team. Kickham can get wild on occasion, but some of his fastballs reached 94 mph. Still, out of 65 pitches in fewer than three full innings, he had only 36 strikes.
   
“It was awesome just to get the opportunity to put on a Giants jersey,” said Kickham, who has been in pro ball only since 2010. “It’s a great opportunity. (The game) didn’t go how I wanted, obviously, but it was something to learn from.”
   
Before the game, Bochy described what he liked about Kickham, his repertoire, his manner.
 
“It’s a big day for him, as it is for anyone his first big-league game,”  said Bochy. “He probably could use another year at Triple-A, but he’s here. We’ll know more about him after the game.”
     
They do. So do the Oakland A’s.

Giants show who they really are

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — That’s who they really are, the Giants. At least who they’re supposed to be, a team that keeps the game close, which has great pitching and effective fielding. For three games, three reassuring games, that’s exactly what they did.
   
There was a loss Wednesday, an agonizing, grinding 2-1 loss to the Washington Nationals at AT&T Park, a loss that reminded how difficult it is to win in baseball.
    
A loss, but not a downer.
    
Not one of those “What the heck is going on here?” type of exhibitions the Giants had a week ago at Toronto and Colorado when they got pummeled, giving up extra-base hits, dropping ground balls — or throwing them away — and dropping five games out six.
  
A “horrible trip” is what Bruce Bochy called it, and for a manager perennially upbeat, that’s a concession as shocking as what happened to the pitching and defense.
   
But the return to the ballpark by the bay brought a return to what we had known as Giants baseball, an 8-0 win over the Nats on Monday, a 4-2 win in 10 innings on Tuesday, and then that 10-inning, 2-1 defeat on Wednesday. Four runs allowed in three games.
   
"The guys bounced back," said Bochy. "They got on track here. This was more (like) our baseball. It was very encouraging how we played in this series. We played well again.
  
“Sure it was a loss (Wednesday), but the way we played was encouraging. Good pitching. What we thought we could do.”
    
Which was hang to in there. To go through some of that sweet torture made famous in that championship season of 2010.
    
On Tuesday, they rallied to tie and then won in 10 on Pablo Sandoval’s home run.
   
On Wednesday, they rallied to tie, then lost in 10 when the superkid, Bryce Harper, who earlier had homered, doubled and scored on Ian Desmond’s single.
   
“Their defense beat us,” said Bochy. Quite probably. After Buster Posey singled home Angel Pagan with one out in the eighth, Hunter Pence drove a liner to right that Harper grabbed on a dive. Then when Brandon Belt smashed one on the ground to right, first baseman Adam LaRoche stopped the ball from going through and forced Posey at second.
   
Two innings later, Washington, underachieving this season, got the run that got the win.
   
“He’s a good hitter,” Bochy said of Harper, an understatement.    
  
Harper, the 2012 NL Rookie of the Year, has been labeled the “New Natural.” He was the overall No. 1 pick in the 2010 amateur draft — a year after teammate, Stephen Strasburg, the pitcher, was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2009 draft.
      
The Nats have talent. So do the Giants, or they wouldn’t have won the World Series twice in the past three seasons. The Giants also had problems, those one-sided losses in Toronto and Colorado. With Ryan Vogelsong out with a broken finger and Santiago Casilla also on the disabled list, they still have them.
    
Yet Matt Cain’s start on Tuesday, only two runs allowed, and Madison Bumgarner’s on Wednesday — seven innings, one run — were reminders of the way it was and should be once more.
    
“It was no fun to give it up (at Colorado), but we know what we can do,” said Bumgarner. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
    
What he didn’t say was that the ugly exhibition on the road wasn’t what people have come think of as the San Francisco Giants. “No,” was his one-word response when asked if that was anything close to what he or his teammates expected.
    
What Bochy and the 190th consecutive sellout crowd at AT&T expected Wednesday was exactly what they got, great pitching, Washington’s Gio Gonzalez — formerly with the Oakland A’s — and Bumgarner matching shutouts through five innings.
   
Then, leading off the sixth, Harper, a left-handed batter, powered a 1-2 pitch off Bumgarner, a left-handed thrower, into the left field stands.
 
"I think he made it pretty clear that he's going to play as hard as he can every day," Bumgarner said of Harper. "It's fun to play against guys like that. Most everybody plays that way, but ... he's the kind of player who can bring out the best in you."
   
The Giants, with a day off Thursday, believe the games against the Nats brought out the best in them after a week when they played their worst.
   
The only disappointing thing Wednesday, other than the final score, was the end of Marco Scutaro’s hitting streak, which had reached 19 consecutive games.
    
Scutaro was the Giants’ final batter. With two outs in the bottom of the 10th, he hit one that appeared might reach the fence but was caught on the warning track by Roger Bernadina.
    
“He just missed it,” said Bochy.

The Sports Xchange: Lincecum, Giants shut down Braves

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange

SAN FRANCISCO — The game is not that complex. If a team pitches and hits better than the one it's playing, it's going to win. Which is exactly what the San Francisco Giants did for three games against the Atlanta Braves.

Not only did the Giants make it three in a row after dropping the Thursday series opener, but they outscored the Braves 23-4 over the final three games. San Francisco cruised to a 5-1 win Sunday afternoon.

Read the full story here.

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