Remember July, when Tim Lincecum had two rough starts out of three and the press and fans wondered if the kid was overtaxed in his first full major-league season?
What rubes we were. Seabuiscut just needed to slow his trot and catch his breath. With eight shutout innings in a 5-0 victory against the Padres on Friday night, Lincecum offered more reassurance that he is built for a long race.
"My body feels the same," Lincecum said. "It feels strong."
Lincecum's 14th win was noteworthy. With a crowd of 33,615 on its feet creating a terrific din, he threw a changeup past Nick Hundley to end the seventh inning and become the first Giants pitcher to reach 200 strikeouts since Jason Schmidt had 251 in 2004.
Were that not enough to please the crowd, Lincecum hit a double in the bottom of the seventh against Padres starter Cha Seung Baek, still in the game despite surrendering five runs in the fourth inning, two on Bengie Molina's double and three on Travis Ishikawa's first home run at China Basin.
Lincecum walked a pair in the eighth inning but received a final ovation after retiring Adrian Gonzalez on a fly to right for the third out. Gonzalez can consider that a victory after striking out in his first three at-bats.
"He did great tonight," Molina said of Lincecum. "That's probably the best I've seen him all year."
Molina caught the Giants' 10th shutout win of 2008. Overall, they won for the sixth time in their last eight games and improved to 12-9 in August as they bid for their first winning month of the year.
Lincecum held San Diego's challenged offense to four hits in raising his record to 14-3. He also leads the league in strikeouts (200) and ERA (2.48). If that holds true at season's end, he will force Cy Young voters to exercise their brain cells before they jot an "X" next to Brandon Webb's name.
In six starts since he coughed up five runs to the Brewers on July 20, Lincecum is 3-0 with a 1.50 ERA and 57 strikeouts. When Lincecum had a 4.09 ERA in July, it was easy to predict a late-season slide in his first full season. Granted, his recent surge has come against inferior opponents. But he has been so spot on it is equally tempting to predict another four or five wins.
"He's been unbelievable," Molina said. "Counting all the wins we couldn't pull out for him earlier in the season, he would have been up there with Webb - 18, 19 wins. He's doing a great job. I hope he stays the same."
Bochy called the 200 strikeouts "quite a milestone." Lincecum concurred, saying, "I never had many strikeouts in a season. The closest I came was in college my junior year, when I had 199. (Pitching coach Dave Righetti) came up and gave me the ball and congratulated me. That was pretty nice to hear."
Another nice sound for Lincecum was the constant crack of the bat in the bottom of the fifth inning, when the Giants erupted for five runs. Emmanuel Burriss launched the rally with a single, and Fred Lewis and Pablo Sandoval contributed a double and single, respectively, but it was Molina's double and Ishikawa's three-run, opposite-field blast to left that produced the runs.
Sandoval played third base for the first time since 2006 in the low minors. He has started at three different positions in his first seven major-league games as The Great 2008 Tryout continues.
Sandoval's only two plays came on consecutive ground balls in the fifth inning. He showed off a booming, if not completely accurate, arm then boasted later, "I can throw even harder."
Omar Vizquel watched from his spot at shortstop and was impressed, saying, "He reminded me of Pedro Feliz a little bit because of the arm. It's that good."
Vizquel also declared it "boring" to play behind Lincecum because so few batters make contact and hit ground balls.
"If that's what 'boring' means," Lincecum retorted, "then I like being boring."
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