Voldemort (Lincecum) Dominates Padres… Again

The last time the Padres faced You-Know-Who*, they didn’t get any hits.

*Tim Lincecum = Voldemort

This time, they didn’t do much better.

Lincecum, who no-hit the Padres for the second time in a year 11 days ago, again made the Padres offense look like helpless Muggles, allowing only two hits in the first six innings.  His only mistake came on his last pitch of the game, when Spring Valley native and newest Padre Brooks Conrad did his best Harry Potter impression and drove the ball over the right-center field wall with one out in the seventh inning.  Conrad’s home run broke a 15-inning scoreless string by Lincecum over the home town team. Lincecum was also working on a 23 consecutive scoreless inning streak, having shut out the Cardinals for eight innings in his one start intervening the two Padres games.

The final score in this game:  5-3 Giants.

Padres’ rookie sensation Jesse Hahn had a little trouble finding his spots early in the game, and although he settled down very nicely, the three runs he gave up in the first three innings were too much for the offense to overcome against Timmy Jim. The Giants tallied one in the top of the first on a leadoff double by Hunter Pence, a passed ball by Yasmani Grandal, and an RBI single by Brandon Belt.  They added two more in the third when Joe Panik followed Pence’s single with a run-scoring double, and was driven in on Michael Morse‘s single to left.

Hahn got through the next four innings very efficiently, allowing only a 7th inning walk.  But the damage had already been done.  Hahn finished with 7 IP, allowing three runs on five hits and two walks while striking out five.  He threw only 101 pitches in the 7 innings.

It would be fair to say that Lincecum owns the Padres.  In his last 11 starts against San Diego, he has pitched 89.1 innings.  That’s an average of over 8 innings innings per start. He has allowed 4 or fewer hits in 8 of those starts. On the Padres’ Wikipedia page, someone kept changing the name of the team’s owner to Tim Lincecum.  No lie.

The Padres’ bullpen had its second bad outing in a row. After Huston Street blew his first save of the year on Saturday, this time Alex Torres gave up two runs in the eighth.  Pence and Panik again started the trouble, and Belt drove in his second run with a sac fly. The fifth run scored on Hector Sanchez‘s RBI double,

Those runs turned out to be the difference in the game, as Grandal brought the Padres back within two on a two-run blast in the eighth after a Carlos Quentin base on balls.  The home run was Grandal’s seventh of the year.

Before the game, wounded military veterans were honored by the Gary Sinise Foundation, and there was a post-game concert by Sinise’s “Lt. Dan Band.” This foundation does extraordinary work, including the building of customized “smart homes” for the most severely wounded veterans.  More information on the foundation can be found at http://www.garysinisefoundation.org.

Box score