(Sports Network) - The Giants know that there probably isn't anything they
can do with Tim Lincecum other than wait and hope that the right-hander finds
his Cy Young-winning form.
Lincecum hopes to begin a resurgence tonight when San Francisco opens up a
three-game series against the Oakland Athletics.
Lincecum won consecutive National League Cy Young Awards in 2008-09 and has
three times in his career won at least 15 games. Even though he finished below
.500 a season ago at 13-14, he still had an excellent 2.74 earned run average
and finished sixth in Cy Young voting.
It has been a lost year so far for the 10th overall pick of the 2006 draft,
with Lincecum going 2-8 with a 6.19 ERA and currently enduring a career-worst
six-game losing streak over his past nine starts since his last victory on
April 28.
Pitching one day after his 28th birthday, Lincecum allowed five runs for a
second straight outing on Saturday in Seattle. He lasted five-plus innings and
gave up five hits and two walks while striking out six in a 7-4 defeat.
"He was throwing well," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said of Lincecum's outing.
"Looked like a good night for him after the first inning. I know he's taking
it hard, he was pitching his heart out ... it's hard to explain because he is
so good at times. Then he has his hiccup innings and has a tough time staying
out of the big inning."
Lincecum is just 1-4 with an 8.13 ERA in seven road outings this season and
even a meeting with the Athletics back on May 20 failed to shake him out of
his slump. He was battered for four runs over just four innings of work in a
loss, falling to just 5-2 with a 1.92 ERA in eight career meetings with
Oakland.
Like Lincecum, Oakland starter Jarrod Parker will be seeking a bit of revenge
with tonight's outing after suffering the worst loss of his brief career
versus the Giants on May 18.
The 23-year-old turned in his shortest outing in 11 big-league starts, lasting
only two-plus innings but yielding a career-high six runs on four hits and
four walks in an 8-6 loss.
Parker, though, turned in his third scoreless outing in four starts last
Thursday in Colorado, twirling seven innings of three-hit ball and a walking
one with six strikeouts in an 8-2 win. The righty rebounded nicely after
yielding six runs over five innings of a loss in Arizona on June 9.
Parker is 3-3 with a 2.82 ERA in 10 starts this season and will try to pitch
the Athletics to a ninth victory in 10 games tonight after they won
yesterday's meeting with the Dodgers 4-1 to secure a three-game sweep.
Yoenis Cespedes ripped a walk-off, three-run homer as Oakland has now won
three straight series for the first time since September of 2010.
"That ball was hit pretty hard. A lot of times it would have hooked foul, but
it didn't have time," Athletics manager Bob Melvin said about Cespedes' homer.
Brandon Inge also drove in a run for the Athletics.
Oakland's win prevented San Francisco from falling further behind Los Angeles
for first place in the NL West. The Giants sit four games back of the Dodgers
and have lost five of their past seven.
That includes Wednesday's 6-0 setback to the Angels in the rubber match of a
three-game series as Los Angeles cruised behind a returning Jered Weaver, who
threw six scoreless innings in his first start after coming off the disabled
list.
Ryan Vogelsong, who had six wins without a loss in an eight-start span, had
that streak broken after yielding seven hits and three runs while fanning six
over seven innings.
"Weaver comes off the DL and he didn't miss a beat," Bochy said. "We didn't
put any pressure on him. A good outing by Vogy, he pitched well, we just
couldn't do anything offensively."
The Giants, who didn't record an extra-base hit, lost to the Angels for the
sixth time in the last seven meetings.
San Francisco won two of three over the visiting A's in the previous meeting
this season from May 18-20, but have been swept in consecutive three-game
series at Oakland.
The Sports Network