Tim Lincecum, Angels face Astros in Free Game of the Day
Tim Lincecum’s first start in his MLB comeback with the Los Angeles Angels was quite a sight. He pitched well, fending off the Oakland Athletics and allowing just one run in six innings. Tim Lincecum 2.0, hey, it could be a thing.
But then came the second start. There wasn’t as much fending and instead of Timmy 2.0 there were the four runs scored in the second inning. Lincecum lasted three, throwing 83 pitches and looking more like the downtrodden ex-ace we saw with the San Francisco Giants.
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What does Lincecum’s third start have in store? You can find out right here on Yahoo Sports, as the Angels play the Houston Astros on Tuesday night in the Free MLB Game of the Day. You can stream the game for free on Yahoo’s Sports Home, MLB index, video home and this very post. First pitch is at 10:05 p.m. ET. Local blackouts apply, per MLB’s rules.
Whether it’s Lincecum or someone else, the Angels are a team that needs a pick-me-up. They’ve lost seven of their last eight games — and that’s with perennial MVP candidate Mike Trout being on fire. He’s riding a particularly hot at the moment, in which he’s homered in three straight games and gotten 12 hits in his last 22 at-bats.
Perhaps that will help bring Lincecum some better results against the Astros, but as we’ve seen so often in the past, Lincecum’s successes and failures usually have more to do with a man battling himself.
This new version of Lincecum — the one who is 32 and has the surgically repaired hips — isn’t counting on beating hitters with his stuff anymore. He knows his fastball isn’t what it used to be. It’s in the low 90s now, instead of the high 90s. As he told Dylan Hernandez of the L.A. Times, Tim Lincecum 2.0 is more about being a cerebral pitcher.
“I think I like pitching with my brain,” he said. “It was fun pitching with a bunch of raw stuff for a while. Now, it’s using my brain, like I’ve been doing for the last three years. I’m not the smartest pitcher, I don’t have the best IQ, I still get flustered in situations, I get overwhelmed, but I’m going to do my best to stay calm during those situations, stay within myself. I know that’s cliché, but it’s kind of made more sense to me as I’ve gotten older.”
Lincecum has goals these days, that go beyond whether the Angels beat the Astros on Tuesday night. He wants to throw 200 innings again, he told The Times. He wants to win 20 games.
Neither of those things will happen this season. This comeback, this revised version of himself, it will take time. Baseball players like to talk about taking one game at a time. It’s one of those clichés that gets repeated over and over again throughout the grueling baseball season.
But sometimes it’s actually true. In Lincecum’s case, one game at a time is all anyone can ask.
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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
