04/03/2008 4:01 AM ET

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Lincecum is sweet relief for Giants
Right-hander waits out rain delay to toss four strong innings
By Chris Haft / MLB.com

LOS ANGELES -- The Giants didn't just defy conventional wisdom while winning their first game of the season. They tested the bounds of sanity.

Typically, the Giants have handled Tim Lincecum as if he lived in an egg carton. So it was mildly surprising when Lincecum returned to the mound after Wednesday night's one-hour, 14-minute rain delay at Dodger Stadium. Most teams would remove their pitcher, particularly a 23-year-old hard thrower such as Lincecum, following such inactivity out of concern for his arm stiffening.

But the Giants banked on Lincecum's resiliency. And he rewarded them by pitching four strong innings in relief and singling to launch a tiebreaking sixth-inning rally as the Giants outlasted the Los Angeles Dodgers, 2-1.

"People have called me a freak of nature before," said Lincecum (1-0). "Now they have another reason to call me that."

This was a night when starters became relievers and vice-versa, sacrifice flies represented the height of offensive potency and it rained in southern California.

Both teams received pregame weather reports stating that they'd be able to play about two innings before storms would hit. Neither Giants manager Bruce Bochy nor his Dodgers counterpart, Joe Torre, wanted to use their respective No. 3 starters, Lincecum and Chad Billingsley, for what essentially would be a wasted outing. Each was scratched.

Both emergency starters pitched briefly but effectively. Los Angeles left-hander Hong-Chih Kuo blanked the Giants on one hit through three innings. San Francisco right-hander Merkin Valdez, primarily a starter for his first six professional seasons before moving to the bullpen, struck out the side in the first inning on his way to two perfect innings.

As it turned out, Billingsley and Lincecum could have gotten in enough work to save their respective teams' bullpens a little more. Rain started falling in the third inning, but didn't halt play until the top of the fifth. By then, each team had used three pitchers, and the Dodgers employed their fourth, Esteban Loaiza, after the delay.

By contrast, the Giants stuck with Lincecum following the delay. These were the same Giants who prevented Lincecum from making his final two starts of last season for fear of taxing his arm and who nursed him carefully through a mild groin pull in Spring Training.

But Bochy, who consulted pitching coach Dave Righetti, bullpen coach Mark Gardner and, of course, Lincecum himself, felt confident that the right-hander could handle the return trip to the mound. And Lincecum, who said that he hadn't worked in relief since his junior year at the University of Washington, insisted that he felt fine physically.

"If we thought that we were going to hurt him, we wouldn't have done it," Bochy said, admitting that Lincecum would have been removed had the delay gone much longer.

"It was close," Bochy said. "We felt if it got to an hour and a half, we probably wouldn't have done it."

As it turned out, Lincecum allowed one run -- in the fourth, before the delay. He weathered constant trouble, allowing four hits and walking four. But he stranded four runners in scoring position, mirroring the Giants' offense. San Francisco left five runners in scoring position before finally scoring in the fifth and sixth on sacrifice flies by Aaron Rowand and Randy Winn. Lincecum, an .093 hitter last year, opened the latter rally with a one-out single off Loaiza (0-1).

The Giants survived a pair of threats after Lincecum departed. With two outs in the eighth, Tyler Walker surrendered Andruw Jones' double and intentionally walked James Loney before Brian Wilson retired Matt Kemp on a comebacker.

The ninth began with first baseman Rich Aurilia's fielding error on Blake DeWitt's grounder, but Wilson pounced on Juan Pierre's sacrifice-bunt try and recorded a daring forceout at second base. Then came a game-ending double play consisting of Rafael Furcal's strikeout and catcher Bengie Molina's peg to second base to apprehend Pierre on an attempted steal.

"You can't say enough about how the pitchers picked each other up," Bochy said.

Chris Haft is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

I'm glad they won for ya

Time for some pictures!

The scoreboard in right field (notice it displays 6 ads at once). Both starting pitchers were last-minute scratches. They both pitched in the game; however.


Left Field Scoreboard:

Giants taking batting practice:

San Francisco's Tim Lincecum takes the mound for the first time - in the 4th inning.



Lincecum's first pitch of the game:

LA's Chad Billingsley takes the mound for the first time - in the 5th inning:

Billingsley didn't last long; however - the rains came in the 5th inning:



Could there be a rainout? Dodger Stadium has seen just 29 since the stadium opened in 1962. In fact, no rainouts occurred between April 19, 1988, and April 11, 1999 - a major league record of 856 straight home games without a rainout.

Rainout? No way! After an hour and 14 minutes let's get the tarps off the field:

Unlike Billingsley, Tim Lincecum would remain in the game:



Warming up prior to the bottom of the 5th:

Lincecum pitching in the 5th inning:

Lincecum, like all NL pitchers, has to bat. The score is now 1-1 in the 6th.



He hit .093 last year. He swings and lines this pitch right back up the middle for a single:

He'd be advanced to 2nd:

Russell Martin has a chat with Esteban Loaiza:



It does no good. The next batter walks and the bases are loaded.

The next batter hits a fly ball to the outfield and Lincecum scores on the sac fly to give the Giants a 2-1 lead.

The Giants take a 2-1 lead heading into the bottom of the 6th. Lincecum would try and make it hold.

He gets through the 6th without a problem:

The Giants do nothing in the 7th and they will try to get one more inning out of Lincecum.

He has some struggles:



Rafael Furcal is all that stands in the way to end the inning:

Lincecum gets out of the inning and the bullpen holds. Giants win!





Credit Tim Lincecum with his first victory of the season:



EDIT: 10,000th post!

My friend loves Tim Lincecum! I'm pretty sure I am going to have an email waiting from her when I check

LOL. The only reason I went was to see Lincecum so I took tons of pictures of him and not much else. Who needs batters when you've got pitchers? If I go team-by-team my favorite player is a pitcher on at least 25 of them.

I'm going to be there for the SF series

Did you notice he was wearing stirrup socks? That's awesome!

Let's try and make my list...
AL EAST
TOR - Halladay
NYY- Mussina
BOS - Wakefield
TB - Kazmir
BAL - Loewen

AL WEST
ANA - umm...Jon Garland? I hate everyone on this team so this is hard
OAK - Rich Harden
SEA - Erik Bedard
TEX - Jason Botts! (non-pitcher)

AL CENTRAL
DET - Verlander
CLE - Borowski - only because he's awful
MIN - Neshek
CHW - Charlie Haeger (throws a knuckleball)
KC - umm...Alex Gordon (this one was tough) (non-pitcher)

NL EAST
NYM - Wright (non-pitcher)
PHI - Hamels
ATL - Smoltz
FLA - Miller
WAS - ummm...Zimmerman (tough one again) (non-pitcher)

NL WEST
SF - Lincecum
LA - Billingsley
ARI - Haren
SD - Maddux!
COL - Tulowitzki

NL CENTRAL
MIL - Sheets
CHC - Hill
STL - Mulder
CIN - Harang
HOU - umm...Oswalt?
PIT - Bay (non-pitcher)

That's 25 pitchers, 5 non-pitchers.

Stirup Socks Rule!


Better than just a High Sock [ like Inge wears]


Speaking of Inge, He was the only player on the field[ yesterday at Comerica and I think the whole series] wearing high socks!


KC players wore their socks low as did the other Tigers players, MLB should require players to show at least 2-3 inches of sock above the ankle.

It is part of the uniform.

I like Dodger Stadium's scoreboards! Comerica Park's scoreboard sucks!


More billboard than scoreboard!

The Dodger Stadium one still fits 6 ads in there :haha:

But Comerica's is mostly advertising! For that matter, the entire ballpark is one huge billboard!


I remember when I was a kid [ back in the 80s] Tiger Stadium had two signs on each side of the scoreboard above the upper deck centerfield bleachers.


That was it!

Coca Cola, Budweiser, National Bank of Detroit, [ they are long gone] and the Marlboro Man!