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Giants ride Lincecum’s gem
By Jeremy Harness July 15, 2010 |
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SAN FRANCISCO - The Giants needed a real statement game to kick off the second half of the season to show they are serious contenders in the National League West, and they got one from Tim Lincecum Thursday night. The ace right-hander threw a complete-game, six-hit shutout at a very tough New York Mets lineup and even got a big hit himself in the eighth inning that led to a run, as the Giants squeaked out a 2-0 win at AT&T Park. “It was one of his best games,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “(But) it’s hard to say it’s his best, because he has thrown some outstanding games. “In the first inning, you could tell he was fresh. It was nice that he didn’t pitch in the All-Star Game, (so) we could use him tonight.” Lincecum didn’t show any signs of the struggles that he had been going through as he closed out the first half of the season. He only walked one batter through the whole nine innings he pitched while striking out five and keeping the Mets off the scoreboard. “I don’t know if the stuff was the best, but I was definitely throwing stuff where I wanted to,” Lincecum said. “Just making big pitches when I had to.” New York got a little rally going in the fifth, as Jason Bay led off with a walk and Josh Thole followed that right up with a single, with Ruben Tejada’s sac fly moving Bay over to third. After his pitching counterpart, R.A. Dickey, bunted Thole over to third, Lincecum got Angel Pagan to fly out harmlessly to center to end the inning. Another struggling star came through on the offensive side. Pablo Sandoval, who entered the All-Star break batting .263 and was 8-for-43 on the team’s previous road trip, nailed a two-out double that banged off the brick wall in right field and scored Buster Posey and gave the Giants a 1-0 lead that they would hold on to for dear life. That is, until the eighth inning, when none other than Lincecum himself kicked off a rally with a single down the left-field line, with Aaron Rowand, who has had his spot in the everyday lineup taken from him, got an infield hit. After Aubrey Huff walked to load the bases, Rowand husled down the third-base line on Posey’s grounder to first and beat Ike Davis’ throw home, providing Lincecum with a little bit of breathing room. “Especially after the second inning, when we got that run, I just wanted to take it upon myself to just shut them down, and throw zeroes at them any way I could,” Lincecum said. “I wasn’t trying to go for strikeouts, just make good pitches, be aggressive.” |
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