Lincecum Dominates Braves; Braves Kill Themselves in Game 1

Tim Lincecum pitched a solid game and showed great control, but the Braves were right there to help him along. Absolutely zero pitch recognition and a terrible approach, along with bad managing and defense, led to a 1-0 win for the Giants.

Lincecum had a great gameplan against the Braves and used it to perfection, pumping in fastballs belt high and above, and dumping slider after slider into the dirt. In the game preview, I stated the Braves needed to look fastball early and be aggressive with it. They looked offspeed all night and never caught up to a single fastball. Along with this, Lincecum’s slider was unhittable because of no recognition of the count. It got to the point where I called almost every slider after halfway through the game. They whiffed throughout regardless of the number of times he threw slider on the same counts. The Braves never had a chance with the way they tried to hit Lincecum.

Derek Lowe pitched a great game himself, and I mean himself. He overcame a Brooks Conrad error in the third with two straight outs with a runner on third to end the inning. In the fourth, Buster Posey singled to lead off the inning, and he stole second on a blown call. With two outs, Bobby Cox decided to be make a terrible decision for the heck of it and walked Pablo Sandoval to get to Cody Ross, who hit a grounder to the side of Omar Infante that slipped under his glove, scoring Posey. So in the span of a few minutes, there was a blown call, a moronic managing decision and a bad defensive play. It all cost the Braves the only run in the game.

Posey doubled in the seventh and reached third on an error by Rick Ankiel, but Lowe got Pat Burrell to strike out and Juan Uribe walked. Jonny Venters was brought in to turn Sandoval around, which makes no sense considering Pablo’s numbers are twice as good from the right side. But Venters induced a double play to end the threat.

Lincecum allowed two hits in a complete game shutout, both doubles. He walked one and struck out 14, throwing 119 pitches, 75 for strikes. He got 31 swinging strikes, which is pretty much insane.

Lowe allowed one run on four hits in 5.1 innings, walking three unintentionally and striking out six. He got nine groundouts to one flyout, continuing his strong pitching. Venters pitched 1.2 perfect innings, striking out two and inducing a big double play. Peter Moylan got the first out in the eighth. After Mike Dunn allowed a hit, Craig Kimbrel got the last two outs in the inning.

Omar Infante doubled to lead off the game, and Brian McCann doubled later in the game. Other than a Jason Heyward walk, that was it for Braves runners. I won’t bother listing how many times each hitter struck out.

Posey went 2-4 and scored the only run. Ross drove him in on a grounder that could have easily been a groundout. Otherwise, the Giants couldn’t manage anything on offense.

The Braves are facing what you could consider a must-win Friday night at 9:37. Tommy Hanson faces Matt Cain.