When I tuned in to hear yesterday's Giants game, I knew I was tuning in to hear a pounding. It was the only possible outcome after all of the media hype over San Francisco's hottest pitching prospect, Tim Lincecum.
For the last couple of weeks, the local media has been in a tizzy over Lincecum's stellar minor league numbers: 1 earned run in 31 innings of work (a 0.29 ERA) in Triple A Fresno. It was actually embarrassing to hear those stats repeated ad nauseam by talk show hosts, sportswriters, and broadcasters. Some said it so often, I wondered if they had it tattooed on their foreheads. It seemed so ridiculous. Lincecum hadn't thrown a single pitch in the Majors and people were already calling him "The Franchise" and saying, "This kid isn't a fluke. He's the real deal."
Of course, yesterday's pounding (5 runs in 4 1/3 innings, some might consider it a light pounding) doesn't mean he isn't the real deal. It just means he's human. And like any human, he's susceptible to nerves. In his case, they were nerves partly produced by the fact that he was pitching in his first big league game and partly produced by the honking heap of media-generated hype.
The only player to receive more hype than Lincecum this season is Boston's Daisuke Matsuzaka, who is currently laboring under the weight of high expectations from two nations (Japan and Red Sox Nation). In his last (and worst) start, Matsuzaka allowed seven earned runs in five innings, further inflating his ERA to very ordinary 5.45.
In a way, I think yesterday's less-than-perfect start was a good thing. It diffused the anticipation and expectations that had been building around Lincecum and effectively switched off the insane hype machine that had been running nonstop for the past few weeks. In other words, it gave perspective and reality a chance to reassert themselves.
Lincecum has the potential to be a great baseball pitcher and a great addition to the Giants starting rotation, but in the same breath, he isn't the second coming of [insert name of random Giants Hall of Fame pitcher here]. Now that he's gotten his first start out of the way, I'm looking forward to his next one.
It's the seventh of May, the Giants have a winning record (16-14), and the New York Mets are in town for a three-game series. I'm stoked because I'm attending my first game of the season tomorrow night. Matt Cain (who got pelted in his last start after so many outstanding outings) faces Tom Glavine. It should be an exciting match up and I can't wait to see it.
