It’s fitting that on draft night, Tim Lincecum reached some kind of a milestone. He hasn’t thrown 1,000 innings in the majors yet, but he does have 1,000 strikeouts, becoming the fastest pitcher to reach the milestone. Yet six years ago, scouts were having knife fights over Lincecum. Seriously, it was like a battle scene from The Two Towers crossed with the "Beat It" video. Radar guns and straw hats littered a bloody landscape. It was ugly.
Nationals Vs. Giants: Nats Rough Up Lincecum, Giants Come Back To Win In 13th
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Everyone knew Lincecum had electric stuff. But the arguments started when no one could decide if he’d be a reliever or a starter, and the knife fights started when his durability was questioned. He was either going to explode in a puff of smoke and wee little ligaments, or he was going to be as durable as any other pitcher. Puh-tay-toe, puh-tah-toe.
And as a result, he dropped. He dropped past the Royals, who had the very first pick in the draft. He dropped past the Rockies, who wanted a safer, more projectable college arm. And he even dropped past his hometown Mariners, who took a different college pitcher. So on a night where a lot of organizations sat in a war room, reflecting on past drafts, it was fitting that Lincecum reached the 1,000-strikeout milestone quicker than any other pitcher in baseball. The debate is over.
Yeah, so the Washington Nationals weren’t impressed. They knocked Lincecum out of the game after just five innings. But the Giants came back to win in 13 innings Monday night, rallying for a 5-4 victory at home.
The Nationals jumped to an early lead, with Mike Morse hitting a solo home run deep into the left-field bleachers. Lincecum then walked Nationals starting pitcher John Lannan to start the third, following that with another walk to Roger Bernadina. After two quick outs, one of which was a Laynce Nix grounder that scored a run, Morse came through again, shooting a line drive into the right-center field gap.
A four-run lead against the Giants is like a six-run lead against another team, so the Nationals were probably feeling comfortable. At least until their bullpen suffered its second collapse in as many days. After an Aaron Rowand home run against Todd Coffey in the seventh, Freddy Sanchez hit a dying quail to right with one out in the eighth. Cody Ross doubled down the left-field line, and Aubrey Huff hit something even less majestic than a dying quail, but somehow it fell for a two-run single. Nate Schierholtz then tied the game, 4-4, with an opposite-field single to left off reliever Henry Rodriguez.
Neither team could score during paid baseball, so they had to go to free baseball, where both teams had scoring chances but couldn’t do anything with them. Until the bottom of the 13th, when two things killed the Nationals:
- Reliever Craig Stammen walked backup catcher Chris Stewart on four pitches to lead off the inning.
- Alex Cora has a noodle arm.
Stewart, over parts of five seasons, has never hit a home run in the majors, but he did hit seven last year in AAA, so you can understand why Stammen might have been too terrified to throw even one strike. An Andres Torres single moved Stewart to second with one out, which brought up Miguel Tejada. The vintage third baseman grounded a double-play grounder that should have ended the inning, but Cora, who was playing second, made a looping rainbow of a throw on the turn, allowing Tejada to beat the play. Freddy Sanchez then singled home the winning run for the eighth walk-off win for the Giants this year, taking Lincecum off the hook.
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