San Francisco Giants: Tim Lincecum Starts to Turn the Corner at the Perfect Time

It's become taboo for a San Francisco Giants blogger or writer to declare that Tim Lincecum is officially back at this point in the season.

Some have tried at certain parts of the year, but then were forced to eat their crow after Lincecum continued to disappoint.

Lincecum's story this season has become eerily similar to the story The Boy Who Called Wolf. He would string together a couple of promising starts in a row, giving everyone hope that this unearthly stretch of horrific pitching had finally come to a close. But then he would follow it up with another pathetic outing, causing fans to pull their hair out and shy away from believing that Lincecum is back because he's already fooled them a few times throughout the year.

In fact, this has happened three separate times this season. If you look at his game-by-game statistics, Lincecum pitched poorly on the heels of two impressive outings on May 4 against the Milwaukee Brewers, July 3 against the Washington Nationals and July 25 against the San Diego Padres.

But has Lincecum finally turned things around?

I'm afraid to say yes, but I saw something different against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night.

One thing I like to do during every Lincecum start is examine his body language during his warm-up pitches and try to gauge how relaxed or focused he is. Against the Dodgers, it looked like it was just another day at the office—he threw his last warm-up pitch and nonchalantly walked off the mound and let Sanchez gun a bullet down to second base.

He looked calm. He looked focused. He didn't look tense.

I saw the old Lincecum swagger from his early days and he looked like he just wanted to go out there and pitch. And that's exactly what Bruce Bochy was hoping for.

“Yeah, I think it is,” said Bochy (via Andrew Baggarly of csnbayarea.com). “We’re getting to the back end of August here. It’s going to be important for Timmy and for us to get on track and pitches better – and I’ll emphasize pitch. That gets away from him sometimes.”

And Lincecum did just that. His fastball was constantly touching 93 mph for the first time this season, and it had some nasty movement as well. He also didn't dig himself holes by getting in a lot of three-ball counts.

Through the first five innings, Lincecum looked like the vintage Lincecum. It was a sight for sore eyes for Giants fans, especially considering how important of a game it was.

But the play of the game goes to Bochy when he pulled Lincecum in the sixth after getting Matt Kemp to fly out to deep right field.

Bochy took Lincecum out at the perfect time to preserve the confidence that Lincecum gained during this start. The Timmy of old would’ve stayed in the game during the sixth inning and likely gotten out of the jam, but the new Timmy has imploded in those situations countless times this year. So by not giving him the opportunity to give up the big hit, Lincecum was able to leave on a high note which could carry over to his next outing.

And that is entirely possible considering how Lincecum has pitched during the second half of the year.

Since the All-Star break, Lincecum is 4-3 with a 3.10 ERA. Those aren't excellent numbers, but the Giants are 5-3 in his eight starts since the Midsummer Classic, and that's all that matters in the end.

The Giants don't need the 2008 or 2009 version of Lincecum to magically reappear out of thin air.

All they need is something reminiscent of how he pitched against the Dodgers on Tuesday night in order to widen the gap between them and Los Angeles.

With Madison Bumgarner, Matt Cain and Ryan Vogelsong all pitching lights out this season, if you throw in even a consistently average Lincecum to the mix, it'll give the Giants a legitimate shot to win four out of every five games for the rest of the year. Plus, even Barry Zito is good for a solid start every now and then.

At this point in the season when every game is a must-win, having four exceptional starters in a five-man rotation could be enough to run away with the division.

That said, the Giants need Lincecum. 

They will go where he takes them. When he's on, he is the engine that makes the car run.

And if this is in fact the turning point of the season for Lincecum, there is not a team in baseball that will want to face the Giants in the postseason.

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