In San Francisco, The Freak Comes Out Like Clockwork—Day and Night

Tim Lincecum's arrival with the San Francisco Giants is a particularly difficult problem for writers.  There really are no adjectives that sufficiently describe this phenomenal athlete.

Open up a thesaurus or online equivalent in search of synonyms for a word like 'incredible' and you'll find no shortage of entries.  You'll see words such as absurd, improbable, preposterous, ridiculous, amazing, astonishing, stupendous, stunning, gnarly, and (my personal favorite) boss.

None of these does the job. All of these together don't do the job.

Yet there stands the diminutive nightmare on the bump, mowing down Major League monsters every fifth day.  And, from the looks of things, the Freak will be doing this in similar fashion for many years to come.

If that's the case, those of us who fancy ourselves equipped to describe the professional sporting world better get crackin'.  We have a sincere challenge whenever Tim Lincecum toes the slab.

Consider his line from Saturday night against the Philadelphia Phillies:  8 IP, 7 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 8 K, and a 2-0 win for Tiny Tim.

Several things should jump out from that line—the lack of earned runs or runs of any kind, the whiff per frame, as well as the baserunner per inning.  Most importantly, however, is the opposition.

If you'll forgive the junior high alliteration, the Phils feature a ferocious five and feel fabulous on foreign fields.  Ah, my English teachers would be so happy although more so because I've forgotten their names and can't directly associate them with that atrocity.

But back to the Giants' hurler.

The Phightin's really do have a quintet of rugged players in Chase Utley, Raul Ibanez, Ryan Howard, Jayson Werth, and Jimmy Rollins. 

You could even throw Shane Victorino in there, but he's hurt and has been absent thus far, save for a pinch-hitting appearance (plus he destroys the scheme above).

Furthermore, Philly's road record is nothing with which to be trifled; it's the best in the Bigs.  So shutting down the explosive offense, even in Lincecum's home park, is quite the feat.

Especially when you pile on the momentum from the opposition's dugout.  The City of Brotherly Love and its team had to be ready to roll after the newly acquired Cliff Lee made his triumphantly stifling debut on Friday.

The Franchise's performance surpasses all hyperbole when you consider he didn't have his A game.

I'll say that again, in case your ludicrous filter grabbed it—Lincecum shut out one of the most potent offenses in Major League Baseball and defeated one of the Show's best nines without his customary array of stuff.

He fanned eight hitters and only relented to the tune of one runner per inning against a premiere club and did it with unusually sloppy reins on his fastball.

When you have a heater like the right-hander's, it's your best pitch no matter how good the others are.  Lincecum's No. 1 has so much natural movement and he has such subtle command of it on normal occasions that it's startling to see him not able to place it wherever he wants.

But that element was missing on Saturday.  Granted, he was putting it pretty close.  That still counts for "sloppy" in the world of the defending National League Cy Young.

In its place was an even scarier proposition—the depth of Lincecum's filth.

As Mike Krukow loooves to say, Lincecum has at least four swing-and-miss pitches.  He could probably beat most pro teams with only two of the four clicking and this is the root of his genius.

On Saturday, the cheddar was a little too ripe, but the changeup was aged appropriately.  It was, in a word, untouchable.  Although the curve was dropping in rather nicely, the soft and straight one was the culprit behind the eight strikeouts.

And the majority weren't cheapies.

Lincecum took on all comers and frustrated most of the best.  He used the changeup to send Rollins, Werth, Utley, and Howard (twice) on the long walk back to the dugout.  The only big gun to avoid firing a blank was Ibanez.

I repeat, without his true smoke going.

There aren't many pitchers who could duplicate the masterpiece, period.  When you start looking for ones who could do it without their best junk at beck and call, the mission becomes almost futile.

Unless it's his turn in the rotation and you've made a pilgrimage to the Church of Lincecum by the San Francisco Bay.

**www.pva.org**