Until a chilly Monday night at Coors Field, the only time Tim
Lincecum carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning was July 9,
2009, against the San Diego Padres. Jonathan Sanchez no-hit the
Padres the following day. So after Lincecum got within eight outs
of no-hitting the hottest team in baseball in the San Francisco
Giants’ 8-1 throttling of the Colorado Rockies, can Sanchez do it
again?
”
Let’s hope so,
”
Lincecum said.
”
They’re a hot team right now. Hopefully the fact we were
smacking the ball around and pitching well kind of makes them feel
more inferior to us, I guess.
”
DENVER
Until a chilly Monday night at Coors Field, the only time Tim Lincecum carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning was July 9, 2009, against the San Diego Padres.
Jonathan Sanchez no-hit the Padres the following day.
So after Lincecum got within eight outs of no-hitting the hottest team in baseball in the San Francisco Giants’ 8-1 throttling of the Colorado Rockies, can Sanchez do it again?
“Let’s hope so,” Lincecum said. “They’re a hot team right now. Hopefully the fact we were smacking the ball around and pitching well kind of makes them feel more inferior to us, I guess.”
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No, the N.L. West will not be won under an overcast Colorado sky in April. But the first meeting between the division’s two clubs with most-favored nations status is an opportunity to set a tone.
The Giants clapped cymbals from the first inning. Pat Burrell hit a three-run home run and Nate Schierholtz followed with a literally Bondsian, 467-foot shot into the mile-high third deck as the Giants blitzed to a 5-0 lead.
They say no lead is safe in Coors Field. Lincecum might have challenged that old saw while cutting through the Rockies lineup, maintaining 95 mph heat and mixing his array of warped, off-speed pitches.
Carlos Gonzalez hit a 3-1 change-up to poke a single through the right side with one out in the seventh, breaking up what ranked as the longest no-hit bid of Lincecum’s career. That last time, against the Padres, Tony Gwynn Jr. led off the seventh with a single.
Lincecum struck out 10 in 7 2/3 innings. It was his 28th double-digit strikeout game as a Giant, matching Christy Mathewson — star of the nineteen-aughts — for the most in franchise history.
“Watching him in person, the TV doesn’t do him justice,” said Ryan Vogelsong, whose relief appearance marked his first big league game since 2006 and his first as a Giant in nearly a decade. “The movement he had tonight on his pitches was unbelievable.
“I definitely didn’t want to give up Timmy’s runs. Then after that, I just wanted to get out of there as fast as I could, because it was freezing.”
Lincecum said he wasn’t thinking about the no-hitter in progress, instead frustrated that his ball-to-strike ratio wasn’t better as he focused on pounding the zone. He maintained 95 mph into the seventh inning, but lost his shutout when Todd Helton doubled home Gonzalez.
“Having watched him last year, he was 89 to 91,” first baseman Aubrey Huff said. “Now he’s gained more weight. He’s 95 with that devastating slider and change-up. He’s making it look effortless out there.”
That pretty much described Schierholtz’s swing in the first inning against Esmil Rogers, who hadn’t allowed a home run in his last 228 batters faced — the longest active streak among starting pitchers in the majors — before Burrell went deep.
Cameras caught Huff slack jawed as he watched Schierholtz’s shot land in the first row of the mile-high seats.
“It looked like a snowflake when it left the bat,” Huff said.
It was the 31st homer to reach the third deck in Coors Field history, and the third by a Giant. Barry Bonds, of course, owned the other two colossal shots.
“Cool. That’s pretty neat. I didn’t know that,” Schierholtz said. “I didn’t even swing hard. I just reacted to the pitch and got the barrel on it. It kind of surprised me, to be honest.”
He was in for an even bigger surprise. His youngest brother, Vai, happened to be sitting 10 feet away from where the ball landed. He and a few fellow cadets from the Air Force Academy baseball team bought tickets to the game. They convinced the fan who caught the ball to sell it for $25.
“I looked up the next inning and they were screaming,” Schierholtz said. “I thought they’d just gone to the spot. After the game, he had a ball in his hand. He said, ‘This is the ball you hit.’ I said, ‘C’mon. No, it’s not.’ ”
Schierholtz had two more singles, making the most of just his second start of the season. Pablo Sandoval drew three walks. The Giants played flawless defense to help extend Lincecum’s no-hitter, too.
“Clear the mechanism,” said Lincecum, describing a line from a Kevin Costner movie that he recited to himself on the mound.
In the N.L. West, against the hottest team in baseball, the defending World Series champions did exactly that.
“You know, I’ve got a very humble group,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “I’m lucky. They don’t get too full of themselves. Sure, there’s a lot of interest in this series because of how well they’ve played. But there’s a lot of baseball in front of us here.
“No, it’s not about sending a message. It’s about playing our best ball.”
— Story by Andrew Baggarly, San Jose Mercury News
