NL West Roundup: Lincecum’s No-No And A Diamondbacks Comeback

With a loss to Zack Greinke and the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Colorado Rockies fell to 45-50 on the season. As if that 1-0 loss wasn’t tough enough to stomach, here’s what happened in the rest of the division on Saturday.

Giants 9, Padres 0

It’s a celebration. Image: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports

Tim Lincecum threw his first career no-hitter. The multiple Cy Young champ took 148 pitches to close the deal, striking out 13 hitters in the process. You can interpret that a couple different ways, depending on your perspective/bias. On the one hand, those 13 K’s resulted from the fact that Timmy possessed the wipe-out stuff that earned him the “Freak” nickname in the first place. Whether he had faced the Padres or the Miami Marlins or the Detroit Tigers Saturday night, his stuff was filthy.

On the other hand, we have seen laborious no-hitters like this one have detrimental effects on the pitcher in the long term (see Johan Santana for a recent example). I predict that this happens to Lincecum as well. After all, this is the same guy who has continued to lose velocity the last number of years, causing people to question his violent delivery. For his part Lincecum made temporary changes to his motion before reverting back to form. He also cut his stupid trademark long hair, a clear sign that he was a broken man at one point and was in his own head. In that context it would not surprise me one bit if we look back on this no-hitter and say: “Lincecum has been a mess ever since he used 148 pitches to finish that no-no against the Padres.”

Also he’s evil.

Diamondbacks 5, Brewers 4

The Dbacks found a way to come back in this one and defeat the lowly Brewers. They were led by home runs from Miguel Montero, Jason Kubel, and their young shortstop Didi Gregorius. As Jonathan Dalton noted in the AP recap of the game, the Diamondbacks have now come from behind in 27 of its 50 wins this season.

You can make fun of their desire to be “gritty” all you want, but the ability to win games like this one might be what sets Arizona apart in a weak division.

Today’s Probables

Jhoulys Chacin (Col) at Ricky Nolasco (LA)

Barry Zito (SF) at Eric Stults (SD)

Note: this match-up also known as, “two dudes who own the Colorado Rockies”

Wily Peralta (Mil) at Ian Kennedy (ARI)