Giants' Lincecum makes early exit in defeat

Laurence Miedema - MercuryNews

Tim Lincecum stumbled in his pursuit of elusive win No. 18 on Tuesday night, but the right-hander still blazed his way into the Giants' record book.

Lincecum, making the second-to-last start in what might be a Cy Young Award season, had nine strikeouts to boost his major-league-leading total to 252 and pass Jason Schmidt for the San Francisco season record.

That was one of the few bright spots in a 9-4 loss to the Colorado Rockies that took some of the luster off Lincecum's Cy Young push.

"To be honest, I felt that was a pretty garbage start for me," said Lincecum, who has lost consecutive decisions for the first time this season. "I feel I should have given my team a better chance to win."

The rare off-night by Lincecum, who failed to protect a 3-1 second-inning lead, wasn't the way he or the Giants wanted to start their final homestand. After winning two of three in Los Angeles last weekend, the Giants must win three of their final five games to avoid 90 losses for the second straight season.

"You want to end on a good note, and I think we've been playing pretty good the past two months or so," third baseman Rich Aurilia said. "You find certain goals to play for, and now it's to stay away from 90 losses or trying to keep the Dodgers from making the playoffs."

Another goal is to keep Lincecum at the front of the Cy Young conversation, and Tuesday's start didn't help. Making matters worse, a scoring change after the game turned Aurilia's fourth-inning error into a two-run single for Troy Tulowitzki, costing Lincecum two unearned runs. The six earned runs in 41/3 innings spiked his ERA from 2.46 to 2.66, dropping Lincecum in the N.L. ERA race to second behind the New York Mets' Johan Santana (2.64).

Lincecum (17-5) had plenty of zip on his fastball despite coming off successive complete games (the first of his career). But he labored just to get into the fifth inning because of command issues and matched his second-shortest appearance this season.

Manager Bruce Bochy said Lincecum wasn't going to pitch more than five innings anyway and added that Lincecum can start Sunday's season finale against the Dodgers if he wants.

"He's been throwing great and he came out with good stuff; just look at the strikeouts," Bochy said. "This kid has had a tremendous year and I didn't want to overwork him tonight."

Lincecum got into trouble right away, allowing a one-out single to Tulowitzki, then walking the bases loaded. But he allowed just one run after he struck out Ian Stewart looking.

The Giants rallied to take a 3-1 lead in the second on run-scoring hits by Aaron Rowand and Randy Winn and a sacrifice fly by Omar Vizquel, but Lincecum allowed a leadoff home run to Seth Smith in the third inning, and the Rockies took a 4-3 lead in the fourth on Tulowitzki's single off Aurilia's glove.

Lincecum recorded his record-tying and record-breaking strikeouts in the inning, passing Schmidt's 2004 total of 251 by blowing a 96 mph fastball past Matt Holliday for the final out of the fourth.

Lincecum has one more shot at win No. 18 on Sunday against the Dodgers, but even with a huge game he won't catch Mickey Welch, whose 345 strikeouts for the 1884 New York Gothams are the franchise record. Lincecum could challenge Christy Mathewson (267 in 1903) for most by a Giants pitcher since the start of the 20th century.