I guess most people want to hear about Tim Lincecum. I chose this photo of Tim because it shows how truly young he looks. Notice he seems to have given up the "high sox" look already.

Tim's performance today was the tale of two innings. In the first inning, he had his control down.......he never went to more than a 2 ball count (although he did have a WP). But he also wasn't throwing corner pitches when he got ahead in the count. He allowed a leadoff single and a 1 out double, both on 0-2 pitches. Tim gave up 3 first inning runs on single, groundout, single, double, single, before ending the inning with a 5-4-3 DP. It seemed like he would either get a swing-through strike.....or a solidly hit basehit. His pitches were just too good.

It seemed like Tim learned a little lesson by the time he came out in the second inning. In the 2nd inning he had an easy 1-2-3 inning on 11 pitches. Tim began the inning with a 1-1 groundball to SS, followed by 2 strikeouts. On the first strikeout he went 0-2, threw a ball out of the zone and then got a called strike 3 on the outside corner at the knees. On the second strike out.......again he went 0-2, threw the next ball out of the zone, then got a swinging strike 3 on a ball pretty much down the middle, but with some serious heat behind it.

I noticed a few breaking pitches, one of which was a hanger that resulted in a 1st inning basehit and two of which were called strikes and seemed to surprise the batters. Tim mostly threw fastballs. As long as he realizes that at this level batters can hit fastballs down the middle.......he should be just fine. I am really looking forward to seeing him develop over the next couple of years.