Lincecum Dominates The A's

After losing game one of the second Bay Bridge Series of 2009, the Giants took game two, ensuring their season victory over their cross-bay rivals.

The star of the show was once again, '08 Cy Young winner, Tim Lincecum. "The Franchise" threw his second complete game of the season (fourth of his career) en route to beating the A's 4-1. Lincecum struck out 12 batters, while walking just two, and needing only 108 pitches to get through the 9 innings. There were a few times late in the ballgame in which the A's put some runners on base with less than 2 outs, but Lincecum had the double-play ball going for him when he needed it as well. The only run the A's mustered off of him was a mistake fastball that he left up to Jason Giambi, in which Giambi put in the right-field bleachers. Other than that, the kid was once again nails, and furthered his case for starting for the NL in the All-Star game, which is just 3 weeks away. I think Timmy should get the nod for a couple of reasons. Not only did he win the Cy Young award last season, but he's picked up right where he left off and is putting himself in the race to win again this year. The kid has really been the NL's best pitcher over the last year and a half (no disrespect to Johan Santana, but look at the numbers). If Lince' doesn't get the nod, it better go to Matt Cain. I might be showing a partial bias, but if there's anyone more deserving than Timmy, it's Cain, who's got 9 wins and a 2.28 era heading into his next start on Friday.

The Giants have been playing pretty good ball lately, so it hasn't been a big issue, but I don't quite understand why they're sticking with Matt Downs at second base over Kevin Frandsen. Downs has shown some signs of capability, and could end up being a fine utility guy down the line, but Kevin Frandsen has been a second base prospect for this team for years, and now there's actually an opening for him, and they're letting him rot in Fresno. Now, I'm not a huge advocate of Frandsen's, as I haven't been overly impressed with him at the big league level yet, but I do feel he's earned a shot, and since they're bringing Burris back slowly, why not give Frandsen a look? He's hitting .400 with 3 homers and 6 RBI over his last 6 ballgames for the Grizzlies, which has his average up to .332. He did have a string of less-than stellar at-bats up here earlier in the year, but I really hope they're not writing him off because of that showing (heck, it took Burris almost all of April to find his stroke). I just think he's in better position to help the team win than Matt Downs. He's got the experience, he's been tearing up AAA pitching, and most of all, he's hungry for that job. I talked to K-Frand late last season at a Giants-benefit event, and when I brought up the future of second base for the Giants, Frandsen went off party mode and into focused mode. You can tell that this guy wants that job. Why not give him a month to see what he's got?

Also catching some news today was Giants' third-round draftee, Chris Dominguez. Andrew Baggarly reports that the Giants have signed the third baseman from Louisville to a contract and that he'll report to Salem-Keizar immediately. It's great to see the Giants ink one of their top picks so soon, and I hope it will be the case with the other guys. Buster Posey didn't sign until late last season, which delyaed his professional debut about 2 months. Let's hope they can get Zach Wheeler inked a little quicker than they did Posey last year.