Your 2013 Giants: Tim Lincecum's First No-Hitter

Congrats to Big Time Timmy Jim's first no-hitter.  He did give up 4 walks but did strikeout 13.  He did it in a staggering 148 pitches.  He ended strong, at least for him today, throwing 91 MPH in the 9th.  He was helped by a 4 run lead after throwing 3 innings, 8 runs after 4, plus a number of great plays led by Sandoval and Pence in particular.

ogc thoughts

With this game, he fulfilled my hopes for him that I had after his third start, just as I had after Cain's first great start.  With stuff like that, I thought, he could finally get us that first no-hitter since The Count did it so long ago.  Of course, who knew that Dirty would beat the two of them to it?  Funny how life works sometimes.  Plus, it was the Padres again.

Wow, 148 pitches.  Saber brains are melting all over.  Of course, part of the calculus of this is that with the ASB, Lincecum will have about 10 days of rest between starts.  Another of the calculus is that The Kid's arm is one that is suppose to bounce back quickly from this type of usage, where he comes back THE NEXT DAY, and throws his usual routine of throwing pole to pole.

Still, I have to worry.  Cain has not been the same after his Perfect Game no-hitter, as while he has been a good pitcher, he has not been the elite starter that he had been for a number of years and was in the games prior to the PG.  And he "only" threw 125 pitches, which is actually considered OK by saber standards, BP noted that when rebutting Bill James complaints about their PAP methodology and theories (I agreed with Bill, FYI, I think pitch counts are over done but this is something pitchers don't do today).  Lincecum threw 23 more pitches than that.  Can Timmy recover OK?  One can only hope, given the extra rest and his ability to come back so fast.

Still, congrats to the Kid, I'm happy he was able to do it for the Giants, given that his contract is over after this season and could be his last with us.  I'm still hopeful we can retain him in some way.  I think he's one of the greats and I would like to hold onto him as long as we could.  I think he could still be effective for us going forward, but he won't be a top tier pitcher for us all the time, and that's OK, if he can be like this for us every once in a while.