Recap: Giants Win 3-2, Lincecum Gets Lots Of Love

Sep 26, 2013; San Francisco, CA, USA; San Francisco Giants starting pitcher

(55) pitches against the Los Angeles Dodgers during the first inning at AT

It might have been Timmy’s last start as a Giant. It might not have. If it was, Tim Lincecum reminded us of why Giants fans have been in love with him for years. He pitched 7 innings, allowing 8 hits, but the Dodgers only managed to score 2 runs against him and the Giants won 3-2.

It didn’t start out looking like a great night. In the top of the first inning Carl Crawford tripled to left center field. After Hanley Ramirez was hit by a pitch, Adrian Gonzalez drove Crawford in from 3rd on a sacrifice fly to give the Dodgers the early 1-0 lead. Matt Kemp then walked but Timmy got Juan Uribe on a grounder to short to keep the Dodgers to the one run.

The Dodgers threatened again in the second. With 2 outs Yasiel Puig singled to left field and Tim Federowicz attempted to score from second base. Gregor Blanco came up firing and Buster Posey applied the tag to get Federowicz at home and keep it a one run game. Thanks again to @gidget for the gif.

The Dodgers would add one more run in the top of the 4th inning. Juan Uribe led off with a ground rule double over the wall in triples alley. Yes that is a strange sentence to write. Mark Ellis followed that with a double down the right field line to score Uribe and give the Dodgers the 2-0 lead.

Timmy seemed to say “enough is enough” and struck the next 3 batters out, all swinging. In all, Lincecum struck out 6 on the night. Puig couldn’t handle Timmy all night, and aside from that one single, he was 3 of Lincecum’s 6 strikeouts.

The Giants broke through against Edinson Volquez in the bottom half of the 5th inning. Nick Noonan led off with a single in to right center field. He moved to second on a wild pitch, and Lincecum moved him to 3rd on a sac bunt. The crowd stood, and roared its approval for Lincecum. After not getting to show their appreciation for Barry Zito the night before, the fans made sure Timmy knew how they felt.

Angel Pagan grounded out to second base, but Noonan came in to score to make it a 2-1 ballgame. After a 2 out walk to Gregor Blanco, Brandon Belt doubled down the right field line. The Dodgers defense had a shift on him and the left the line open. Blanco scored to make it 2-2, but Belt was thrown out trying to stretch his double in to a triple.

In what might have been his final half inning in a Giants uniform, Lincecum mowed through the top 3 in the Dodgers lineup. He struck out Puig, got Crawford to fly out to Hunter Pence in right, and induced a grounder from Hanley Ramirez for the final out.

All told, Lincecum stranded 7 of the 9 men to reach base against him. He faced 30 batters on the night and threw a first pitch strike to 22 of them. Timmy threw 103 pitches, 64 of them for strikes.

After a 1-2-3 inning by Santiago Casilla in the top of the 8th, the Giants took the lead. Angel Pagan homered down the left field line to lead off the bottom of the inning. It was his 5th home run on the year, and 3rd in the 7th inning or later. It was a line drive, and skipped off the top of the wall for the deciding run. We got the full on Angel Pagan Salute for this one.

Sergio Romo pitched a perfect 9th inning for his 38th save this season. He is now 2 away from being the fourth Giant to accomplish that feat.

After the game we heard from Timmy as the beat writers shared with us on Twitter. Let’s just hope we see him again in the orange and black. Excuse me, but I think I have something in my eye.

The Giants will play their final series of the season starting tomorrow when the Padres come to town. The matchup is Ryan Vogelsong (3-6, 5.90) against Burch Smith (1-2, 5.87). I’d never heard of him either. Once again tomorrow night we may have another farewell start as Vogey’s future is uncertain. The last Orange Friday gets started with the first pitch at 7:15pt at AT&T Park.