Henry Schulman
SF Gate/San Francisco Chronicle
The opening-series win against Milwaukee is a foggy memory, trumped by an awful weekend in San Diego and a sweep at the hands of a team that lost 99 games last season and is projected to be that bad again.
At the heart of the Giants' angst after a 2-4 week is their ace, Tim Lincecum, who surrendered 10 hits in a game for the first time as a major leaguer and looked un-Cy-like again in a 6-1 loss to the Padres.
Although better than he was Opening Day, Lincecum allowed four runs in 51/3 innings, or one more run than the Padres managed against him in 431/3 innings last year. Lincecum looked lost out of the stretch, with catcher Bengie Molina forced to go high and low to catch stray pitches.
Oh Timmy, where art thou?
"Something's not clicking and I'm going to figure it out," said Lincecum, who took little consolation in the thought that by season's end, he will have done just that.
"You worry about things going on, especially in the present," he said. "You don't worry about 35 games. You try to take any positives you can out every start and work on the negatives. Obviously, there have been more negatives than usual."
Of equal concern is an offense that punished the Brewers for 19 runs then squeaked out seven in three games at Petco Park.
After hitting three Opening Day homers, the Giants have none since then. Their pitchers allowed seven for the week.
In other words, Giants fans, it was the same old, same old.
Pablo Sandoval and Travis Ishikawa, the two young corner infielders on whom so much of the supposedly improved offense is predicated, went a combined 2-for-21 in the series, although Ishikawa hit a few scorchers for outs. Manager Bruce Bochy has a simple plan: Let them play.
"It's a start, is what it is," Bochy said. "We're six games into the season. They just need to relax, settle in and they'll get going. There are a couple of guys on the team that just beat us who aren't hitting like they normally do. It's going to happen, and you've got to stay behind these guys."
Padres catcher Nick Hundley is hitting. He went single, double, triple against Lincecum in his first three at-bats.
Lincecum's problem is fastball command. Molina said intended corner pitches both inside and outside were leaking over the plate.
Lincecum confessed he reached a boiling point but bottled it in lest his teammates see the frustration on his face. During the three-run third inning, Lincecum got a lecture from Molina.
"I told him straight up, 'You're the best pitcher out there. Come on,' " Molina said. "I thought he was thinking too much about his mechanics, where his arm was. I don't think a pitcher should be thinking about his mechanics on the mound in a game. That should be in the bullpen."
Poor defense hurt Lincecum in that inning. With two outs and Jody Gerut at third, left fielder Fred Lewis got a poor break on Adrian Gonzalez's flare, lunged and trapped what could have been the third out. Instead, Gerut scored on the single.
Chase Headley then skied a two-run homer into the "jury box" that juts into the right-field corner for a 3-0 San Diego lead. The way the Giants hit in the series, Lincecum was doomed to the loss right there. Now, they head to Los Angeles for a series that suddenly becomes important for April.
"We need to come back with a win or a sweep or something," Lewis said. "We need to come back after this."
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