Giants… let Lincecum do what he needs to do

Tim Lincecum is about to make arguably the biggest start of his career. After a month or so when the Giants couldn’t get any decent starting pitching, suddenly things have turned around.

And a lost season is looking more and more found as the Giants remain 2 back in the loss column for the NL West lead and 1 game in the loss column for the NL Wild Card with 24 to play. (And a possible season making 4 game series in San Diego starting day after tomorrow.)

He had a grotesque August where he went 0-5 with a 7.82 ERA and pitched just over 5 innings a start.

His first start in September was a solid 8 innings 1 run win.
They need another start like that against the D’Backs. They need Cy Young Lincecum.

Which means, Giants… let him do WHATEVER he was doing in 2008 and 2009 when he won his first two Cy Young Awards.

Look away, say “Do what you’ve got to do” and don’t ask questions. Yeah he got in a little bit of trouble in the off season… and no, I am not condoning any illegal activities.

Just wink and say “I don’t want to know.”

If there was a guy showing up in a Tie Dye shirt listening to Phish on days Lincecum pitched last year… FLY HIM IN!

The Giants have a shot to make the post season and possibly line up a playoff rotation that could send them right to the World Series.

And they need Lincecum to be an ace. And if it was smoke and mirrors (and smoke) that helped him win, then cue up the Marley and make it work.

And don’t get all Holier than Thou about strange dudes showing up to the Giants clubhouse with substances.

Lest we forget…

Glass Half Full for the A’s

The A’s are a sub .500 team and are 7 games out of first place… a whole week behind with only 25 games to play. And they aren’t exactly playing barn burning baseball, going 5-7 in their last 12 games.

Their disabled list is filled with people who you might have heard of (Eric Chavez, Ben Sheets, Justin Duchscherer) and when Daric Barton and Kevin Kouzmanoff are your top offensive threats after Labor Day, it is time to play out the string and hope to finish above .500.

So why am I still keeping track of them for the post season?

Because the wheels are falling off the Rangers bandwagon in a hurry. I wrote in June that I wasn’t buying the Rangers until I saw how they were after Labor Day. Well guess what? They have a 7 game lead after Labor Day and I’m STILL not buying them.

They’ve been playing losing ball for a while now and are a combined 14-19 since August 1. And only 1 win this month.

Throw in the fact that Cliff Lee hasn’t been himself and needs to skip starts and have a cortisone shot. Throw in their MVP candidate, Josh Hamilton, who is out indefinitely.

Oh yeah, they are also going to play a tough Blue Jays team then an obsessed Yankees team this week.

Could the Rangers go on a prolonged Padres-esque losing streak?
Sure! Why not?

Could the A’s feast on the Mariners and a waving the white flag Red Sox team?
It’s possible.

Let’s just say the A’s and Rangers move a little closer to each other in the standings… let’s say the A’s could cut the lead to 3 or 4 by the time September 23rd comes along.

Then Texas comes into Oakland for a 4 game series…

It’s possible. Anything is possible when you take a team’s Cy Young Candidate and MVP Candidate out of the equation.

So keep playing hard A’s… despite being a losing team with a huge deficit to make up, you are still in it.

Well THAT wasn’t so hard, was it Red Sox?

A nice, no doubt about it win (save for that inning where Robert Coello‘s major league debut left a lot to be desired) and Jon Lester matched his career high for wins.

Actually there was something a lot of fun about last night’s win.
The youth.

Ryan Kalish, 22, hit a grand slam.
Josh Reddick and Yamaico Navarro are 23 and 22 respectively.

Lars Anderson, who seems like he has been a Sox prospect forever, finally made his big league debut. Lest we forget, he’s only 22.

And Lester, the grizzled veteran, is 26.

I like this kind of line up. I like holes being filled with young kids who want to win in the Red Sox uniform instead of picking the bones of other organizations.

Let’s have more wins like this shall we? And go into 2011 with a lot of questions answered with the response “We can fix that within the organization.”