Bay Area Sports Blogging

Tim Lincecum, nicknamed The Franchise by his teammates, earned the title with a gutsy performance against the San Diego Padres this night.

Lincecum threw 121 pitches in 7 scoreless innings, striking out 9 and lowering his era to 1.23. With Rich Aurilla's first homerun of the season give the Giants a one run lead, Brian Wilson closed out the game for his 7th save in 8 tries.

Umpire James Hoye's strikezone was pretty small and slightly off to the right for the night. The Padres starting pitcher, Chris Young, and Lincecum was pinched on a number of pitches. Lincecum control was not top-notch as witnessed by the five walks he gave up, but he was able to get out of a number of tough jams with timely pitching.

Rich Aurilla was the hero of the game. For all the criticism he receives from fans, Aurilla seemed to be the only guy on the team who was able to time Chris Young's fastball. He got all of one in the 7th inning and launched it into the left field bleacher seats. This does not meant he should be starting everyday though. I would still rather see the young guys getting the majority of at-bats ahead of him.

Jack Taschner was awesome tonight. Not much has been said about what Taschner has done this season, but he has been lights out when coming in with men on base. With two men on base in a 1-0 game, Taschner came in and had to work around a passed ball to get Scott Hairston to pop out and Adrian Gonzalez to ground out. What's more, I have him on my fantasy team! Go Tasch!

Brian Wilson is going to give me a heart attack one day. Although he recorded his 7th save of the season, the way in which he went about getting the save was so nerve-wracking. Against the first batter, he got behind 3-1 and ended up striking out the hitter. Then, he overpowered the next batter striking him out on three pitches. Next, he gets ahead of Brian Giles 0-1 , but throws 4 straight balls bringing up the Giant-killer Hairston to plate.

For many Giants' fans, Scott Hairston is well known for his clutch homeruns last year when his pinch-hit homerum tied the game in regulation and a homer in extra innings won the game.

Fortunately tonight, Wilson was able to get Hairston to ground out to third and the Giants came away with a two-game sweep of the Padres.

Even without much power, the Giants are finding ways to win playing little ball and picking each other up when mistakes are made. With tonight's win and the Dodgers loss, the Giants are in 3rd place in the division with a 10-13 record. The win also keeps Tim Lincecum unbeaten with a 4-0 record. His 9 strikeouts gave him the league lead in strikeouts with 36. This pushes Jonathan Sanchez to throw up some K's in tomorrow's match against the Cincinnati Reds.

For those out there looking to witness Tim Lincecum pitch in next matchup on Tuesday next week against the Colorado Rockies, a promotion was pushed for tonight's game against the Padres. For every strikeout thrown by a pitcher in tonight's game, a dollar would be docked from the $18 bleacher seat tickets. Lincecum's nine punchouts plus Wilson's two makes the $18 tickets worth only $7. For those looking to pick up some cheap tickets, head over to SFGiants.com and put in the code GIANTSK to get the deal.