Tim “The Freak” Lincecum

Picture the guy. Five foot eleven if you're being generous, maybe 170 pounds, hair down past his collar, looking like he wandered into the clubhouse on the way to a skate park. Then he'd turn his back to the hitter, kick his leg up, take a stride that seemed about seven feet long, and the ball would come out of that little body at 97, 98 miles an hour. That's Tim Lincecum. That's The Freak. I've watched a lot of Giants pitching in my life and nobody has ever made me lean toward the TV the way he did.

He grew up outside Seattle, born in Bellevue on June 15, 1984, and his dad Chris, a Boeing guy, built that delivery with him from the time he was four, filming his throws and breaking them down. Scouts saw the size and blinked. The Cubs took him in the 48th round out of high school and he didn't sign. Cleveland took him in the 42nd round in 2005 and he didn't sign again. He went back to the University of Washington and in 2006 he went 12 and 4 with a 1.94 ERA and 199 strikeouts, won the Golden Spikes Award as the best amateur player in the country, and the Giants grabbed him tenth overall. The Mariners, his hometown team, took Brandon Morrow fifth. I still think about that sometimes and grin.

He didn't spend long in the minors. Five starts at Fresno in 2007, 4 and 0, one run allowed in 31 innings, 46 strikeouts. Russ Ortiz's elbow flared up and on May 6, 2007, the kid made his debut at AT&T Park against the Phillies. He struck out Chase Utley, Pat Burrell and Aaron Rowand in his first inning. He also got knocked around a bit and the Giants lost 8 to 5. Didn't matter. Matt Cain later wrote that he thought of that day as the moment the Giants stopped being a team that was losing a lot and started building something. I believe him, because I felt it too, and we were still in the last Bonds summer.

Then 2008 happened. He went 18 and 5 with a 2.62 ERA and 265 strikeouts, the first San Francisco pitcher ever to lead the league in strikeouts, breaking Jason Schmidt's club record along the way. He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, made the All Star team, and in November he won the Cy Young. Only the second Giant to win it, after Mike McCormick in 1967. The team around him was not good. He was the reason you bought a ticket every fifth day, and people did.

And he did it again. In 2009 he went 15 and 7 with a 2.48 ERA, 261 more strikeouts, four complete games, and on July 27 he struck out 15 Pirates in a complete game at home. He started the All Star Game for the National League. That November he edged out Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright for a second straight Cy Young, the first pitcher ever to win the award in each of his first two full seasons. Two years. Two Cy Youngs. I'm not sure Giants fans fully understood at the time how ridiculous that was. I'm not sure I do now.

The 2010 regular season wasn't his cleanest. He walked too many guys in May and lost five straight in August, and for a couple weeks there people were genuinely nervous about him. Then September came and he went 5 and 1, the Giants won the West on the last day of the season, and he went into October and did the thing that made him a legend in this town forever. A two hit, 14 strikeout shutout of the Braves in his first ever playoff game. A win over Roy Halladay in Philadelphia. An eighth inning out of the bullpen in the pennant clincher. And then Game 5 of the World Series in Texas, eight innings, ten strikeouts, Cliff Lee beaten, and the first World Series title San Francisco had ever seen. He won the Babe Ruth Award as the MVP of the postseason. He earned it.

In 2011 he was arguably just as good and got nothing for it. A 2.74 ERA, 220 strikeouts, his fourth straight All Star team, and a 13 and 14 record because the offense behind him barely showed up. That year he passed Christy Mathewson for the most ten strikeout games in franchise history and got his 1,000th career strikeout at home on June 6. Then 2012 hit him like a truck. He was 3 and 10 with a 6.42 ERA at the break and finished 10 and 15 with a 5.18. The fastball was slipping. People wanted him out of the rotation, and in October he was out of it.

What I love about that, though, is what he did next. He took the bullpen job and was nails. Two scoreless innings in the NLDS, then 4.1 innings of one run relief in Cincinnati in an elimination game the Giants won 8 to 3. In the World Series he threw 2.1 hitless innings with five strikeouts in Game 1 and another 2.1 scoreless in Game 3, and the Giants swept Detroit. Second ring. The ace became the guy who'd do anything, and honestly I loved him more for it.

The no-hitters are what people forget he still had in him. On July 13, 2013, at Petco Park, he threw 148 pitches, struck out 13 and no-hit the Padres 9 to 0, the first no-hitter ever in that park. Less than a year later, on June 25, 2014, he did it to the Padres again at home, 4 to 0, on 113 pitches, and got two hits himself. Only Addie Joss had ever no-hit the same team twice, and nobody had ever done it in back to back seasons. In 2014 he lost his rotation spot in August, didn't pitch at all in the NLDS or NLCS, then came out in Game 2 of the World Series in Kansas City and retired all five Royals he faced before his back tightened up. Third ring.

It ended quietly, the way these things usually do. In 2015 he got off to a nice start, passed Carl Hubbell on the Giants strikeout list in May, and then a line drive off his pitching elbow and a degenerative condition in both hips shut him down. He had hip surgery that September. He signed with the Angels in 2016 and made nine starts with a 9.16 ERA, which I'm choosing not to think about very hard. He sat out 2017, tried a comeback with the Rangers in 2018, pitched ten games in Triple A and got released in June. With the Giants he went 108 and 83 with a 3.61 ERA and 1,704 strikeouts. Bochy said right after that release that he'd always have a spot for Timmy somewhere.

After that he mostly disappeared, and for a long time that was the hardest part of being his fan. He came back to the ballpark for Bochy's last game in September 2019 and the place shook, and then he went away again. He lost his brother in 2018 and his wife, Cristin, in 2022. He showed up on the Hall of Fame ballot that same year and got nine votes, 2.3 percent, and dropped off after one try. Nobody here cared. Lately he's been spotted around the Bay again, out golfing, posing for pictures with fans at Original Joe's in Daly City, being by every account kind and easygoing about it.

As of this fall his number 55 still hasn't been given to another Giant, and he still isn't on the Wall of Fame, even though he's had the nine seasons for years. At the Wall of Fame ceremony this August, with Posey, Crawford, Belt, Sandoval and Panik going up, the word was that Lincecum and Bumgarner are next whenever they're ready. Belt said he'll fly back for anything to do with Timmy. Posey, who'd recently spent time with him, said the roof is going to come off whenever he comes back. I'll be there. I'll be the one crying in the upper deck.

People talk about Bumgarner in 2014 like it's the only October pitching story that matters around here, and I get it. But the whole thing started with Lincecum in 2010, and I'll fight anybody on that. The Giants hadn't been to the playoffs since 2003. They had never won a World Series in San Francisco. In their first postseason game in seven years, the two time Cy Young winner went out and threw a two hit shutout with 14 strikeouts and won 1 to 0. A one run game. No margin. That set the tone for the whole run.

Then look at who he beat. Halladay in Game 1 in Philadelphia, a guy who'd thrown a no-hitter in his previous playoff start. Cliff Lee in Game 5 of the World Series, a rematch of Game 1, with Lee pitching at home. Lincecum took the ball in Texas with a chance to end 56 years of waiting and gave up three hits in eight innings. In the 2010 postseason he was 4 and 1 with a 2.43 ERA and 43 strikeouts in 37 innings. That's an ace doing what aces are supposed to do.

I also want to be honest. He lost Game 5 of the NLCS that year, 4 to 2 at home, and he got hit around in his one 2012 start in St. Louis. And when he came in on one day's rest in Game 6 in Philly, he struck out Jayson Werth and then gave up two singles, and Brian Wilson had to bail him out. He wasn't perfect in October. He was just there, every time Bochy asked, starter or reliever, and over three title runs he put up a 2.40 ERA in 13 games with 65 strikeouts in 56.1 innings. I'll take that.

The 2012 part is the part I'd show a kid. He had the worst year of his career and lost his job. Then in the playoffs he came out of the pen five times, in the NLDS, NLCS and World Series, and allowed one run in 13 innings of relief. A two time Cy Young winner, getting huge outs in an elimination game in Cincinnati and in the World Series against Detroit without a word of complaint. That's what clutch looks like when your best stuff isn't there anymore.