Tim Lincecum came within 1 out of pitching a Quality Start today which represents a distinct improvement from his last two starts, but it was still a struggle as he battled poor control and an apparent loss of velocity on his fastball. Meanwhile, you can pencil in Ubaldo Jimenez as the new most dominant starting pitcher in baseball as he totally dominated the Giants with filthy stuff all game long. In the Giants defense, I thought they put up a valiant effort trying to work counts and hitting a number of balls hard, but when you are going as good as Jimenez, those balls tend to find the gloves of your fielders and the Giants never really threatened. Key lines:
Pablo Sandoval- 3 for 4, 2B. BA= .293. Pablo wasn't intimidated and looks like he may be getting his mojo back.
Tim Lincecum- 5.2 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 5 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 3.14. The highest velocity I saw from Timmy today was 90 MPH. He relied a whole lot on a pitch that is either a splittee or a knuckle curve. The Rockies' hitters weren't buying and mostly let it dive on down out of the strike zone forcing Timmy to get them out with less than his best pitches. It's not clear whether Tim's loss of velocity is due to an out-of-whack delivery or fatigue, but it's the same thing that cropped up near the end of last season. That it's happening this early this year has got to be a bit disconcerting. It's making the Giants negotiating a 2 year deal rather than a longer one look better and better. Until Timmy proves he can regain his velocity or make it work with a lower velocity, Matt Cain and Jonathan Sanchez have moved ahead of Tim in terms of stuff and ability to be stoppers in the rotation. Cain is probably the ace of the staff now.
Dan Runzler- 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K's. ERA= 4.43. Runzler threw away a pickoff throw that allowed one of TImmy's runners to score. Ultimately, it didn't matter. Otherwise Runzler looked like he had good command of dominant stuff hitting the mid-90's with the fastball.
Denny Bautista- 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 K's. ERA= 1.59. It was a mop up effort, but Bautista is looking like another small gem found on a dumpster dive. Mid-high 90's fastball with good movement. Brandon Medders is going to have a tough time getting back to the majors after his injury.
Ubaldo Jimenez- 9 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 9 K's. Great, great stuff. You have to go all the way back to Juan Marichal to find a comparable start to the season and starting pitching was a vastly different occupation back then. Meet your new odds-on-favorite to win the NL Cy Young award, if not MVP. Jimenez is on a pace to win 30 games. Unlikely, but not completely lmpossible. Even 25 would be astounding in this day and age of deep bullpens and quality starts.
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Yeah, it looks like Ubaldo is the heir apparent for the Cy and Tim won't be winning a third in a row. Amazing well-pitched game, but as you noted, the Giants did well to get him out of the game, he was basically at his last batter, he was nearly at 130 pitches, so maybe that will affect him for future starts at some point.
ReplyDeleteA few more pitches, and they would have gotten into their bullpen, where they are more vulnerable.
Yeah, both Bautista and Casilla. They are like last year's Medders and Miller, only with great fastballs.
And Sandoval might have his mojo all the way back now with the multi-hit game.
Thanks for the comment on my blog regarding the defense. That is something most fans don't notice or appreciate. Thanks for pointing out the gems in the game.
Sanchez sounds like Vizquel in the way the radio announcers have been talking about his defense. His defensive stats have not been that great at 2B but were great at 3B, according to the latest defensive metrics, maybe he just needed to get healthy again to play 2B well. In any case, he has been pretty good so far, giving the Sabean Naysayers no room to complain about him (they have moved on to Rowand now that he's scuffling ... again; what do you think his problem is?).
What do I think Rowand's problem is? I don't think he's ever been that great of a hitter. He's had, what, 2 really good seasons in his career? If you correct for park factors, his performance in SF has been about on par with his career if you take out the 2 outlier seasons.
ReplyDeleteI'll defend what Sabean has done in the draft, scouting and farm system starting with the 2006 draft of Tim Lincecum, but I think we also have to admit that he grossly overpaid for both Zito and Rowand. To Zito's credit, he's reinvented himself as a pitcher and is coming close to earning his keep this year. Rowand is looking more and more like a bust.