Mercury News
The scoreboard radar readings were turned off at AT&T Park on Friday night, but Tim Lincecum was definitely turned on.
In a game for the Giants that was as close to essential as could be possible at this stage of the season, their ace clocked the Colorado Rockies with eight shutout innings in a 2-0 victory that did much to re-energize the National League wild-card race.
The Giants pulled to within two games of the Rockies, with Barry Zito slated to pitch tonight followed by Matt Cain on Sunday. But that would not have meant a whole lot had Lincecum not brought his "A" game to the mound.
He did, and this time his focus was on Rockies hitters as opposed to the radar-gun readings he admitted had distracted him Sunday in Colorado. During that game his speed figures were posted as suspiciously low compared to Rockies starter Ubaldo Jimenez in a 4-2 defeat at Coors Field.
In this rematch of the two young, hard-throwing right-handers, the left-field radar-gun board was turned off. But it was apparent from the outset that even without the numbers, Lincecum had his stuff working. And with scant offensive support — a Pablo Sandoval solo homer in the fifth inning and another run in the sixth on a Eugenio Velez two-out single — he needed to be in top form.
"We're coming down the stretch here in the last month, and these games are big, so we take them as seriously as we have to," Lincecum said. "They're just really big games. You have to buckle down more." Lincecum said he noticed early on that the radar-gun board was off, and contended that he missed it even though he pitched such an outstanding game without it. "I look at the gun," he said. "I've said this before, whether or not I can get a fastball by you, I may not try to throw it down the middle if I'm only throwing 90 mph. You can get away with stuff if you throw harder, so it's nice to have that gauge." Lincecum threw a season-high 127 pitches in claiming his 13th victory in his fifth try after three no-decisions and a loss. He allowed just four hits, walked three and struck out eight. He hasn't received much run support during that dry spell, but on this night it didn't matter. It also didn't matter that he was pitching for the first time to catcher Eli Whiteside, who was in the lineup for the fourth straight game because of Bengie Molina's tight right quad muscle. Molina had caught Lincecum for 44 straight starts, the longest active streak in the majors. But Lincecum and Whiteside seemed to get in a good groove almost instantaneously. "Only a handful of times he shook me off all night," Whiteside said. "But with the stuff he had tonight, he could have thrown whatever up there, and I think he would have gotten outs." Whiteside helped his pitcher by throwing out Troy Tulowitzki trying to steal in the second and fourth innings, the latter preceding a single that would have scored the first run of the game. "He saved my life a couple of times," Lincecum said. Sandoval, returning to the lineup after missing two games with a calf injury and a bout with the flu, finally got the Giants on the board in the fifth when he smacked a one-out, opposite-field homer, his 20th, over the left-field wall on a 1-2 pitch. The Giants provided Lincecum an insurance run in the sixth, and he took it from there. He retired the last eight hitters and left to a standing ovation before a near-sellout crowd of 39,047. Brian Wilson pitched a scoreless ninth for his 31st save. Lincecum said he was happy finally to record his 13th win. "Me and Cain have been working on that for a while," he said. "He told me, `You finally just pushed that one out, now I can go get it.' Hopefully, we see that on Sunday." From: MLB.com
 Colorado (72-57) Lost 3 | San Francisco 2, Colorado 0 |  San Francisco (70-59) Won 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Standings thru 8/28/09 | Recap: COL | SF | Wrap | Gameday |
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