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Since Lincecum's next start will be against the Cardinals, I'm fairly certain Vander Meer's record will last another day.
There was a flukish aspect to the no hitter, it looked very easy, not one play that could be described as beyond routine. Lincecum struck out six batters, below his normal one per inning rate. Pitching to contact, he didn't arrive in the sixth inning having already reached 100 pitches, his typical situation.
Further, Lincecum, a career .115 hitter, was a lion at the plate last night. He had two singles and a walk, all three as the lead off batter of an inning. He scored two of the four Giants runs.
The Giants' offense was the polar opposite of the Padres' efforts. Where everything the Pads hit was right to someone, the Giants hits (except for Posey's two run double) tended to be bleepers and bloopers which evaded defenders by inches.
Kershaw strikes out 13 in 7 scoreless innings. 9-2 now with 2.08 E.R.A.
6-0 with an 0.82 ERA in June.
Will he win the CY Young again?
Interesting question. Because of the time he spent on the DL, Kershaw is on a pace to pitch 152 innings this season, ten shy of the 162 needed to qualify for the ERA title.
Using projections based on duplicating first half performance for the Cy contenders:
Johnny Cueto W 16 L 10 ERA 1.88 IP 248 H 150 BB 58 K 244 K/bb rate 4.2
Adam Wainwright W 20 L 8 ERA 2.01 IP 226 H 162 BB 43 K 205 K/bb rate 4.7
Clayton Kershaw W 17 L 4 ERA 2.04 IP 152 H 120 BB 21 K 206 K/bb rate 9.8
If we overlook Kershaw's pitching about 80-90 innings fewer than Cueto or Wainwright, then my vote would go for Kershaw, when out there, he has been the most effective pitcher in the NL. If the voters are reluctant to give the award to someone who does not qualify for the ERA crown, I would expect Wainwright to win.
There is a precedent which favors Kershaw. In 1984 Rick Sutcliffe began the year with the Indians in the AL and wasn't much good, going 4-5 with a 5.15 ERA over 94 innings. He was then traded to the Cubs and turned in an incredible 16-1 record with them, 2.69 ERA with 155 strikeouts in 150 innings. He won the NL Cy Young that season.
Working in Sutcliffe's favor was that the competition didn't produce a single blows em all away pitcher. Dwight Gooden was 17-9, 2.60 ERA, Joaquin Andujar was 20-14, but with 3.34 ERA. It also helped immensely that Sutcliffe produced his miracles on behalf of the 1984 Cubs, the first Cubs team to qualify for the post season in 39 years.
Kershaw faces tougher competition in Cueto and Wainwright.
If the season ended today, the two wild card teams in the American League would be the Angels and the Mariners.
If the Angels were in the AL East, they would be in first place, two games ahead of Toronto. If the Angels were in the AL Central they would be tied with Detroit for first place.
If the Mariners were in the AL East, they would be tied with the Blue Jays for first place.
Pablo Sandoval hit his 100th career home run last night.
Ever wonder how rare that is?
Pablo is now tied with seven other player for 805th place on the all time list.
There have been three players with 700 or more home runs, eight players with 600 or more, twenty six with 500 or more, fifty one with 400 or more, 137 with 300 or more, 315 with 200 or more, and 812 have reached or passed 100.
Six of the eight with exactly 100 home runs are retired, thus six are frozen at that figure. Three players, all retired (Don Mincher, Oscar Gamble and Bill Freehan) had exactly 200 career homers. Chuck Klein is the only player with precisely 300 career home runs.
No one has exactly 400 home runs, Adrian Beltre (385) and Miguel Cabrera (379) are the closest active players, but they seem unlikely to stop at 400.
No one has exactly 500 home runs, no one has come close. The list jumps from Lou Gehrig and Fred McGriff tied at 493, to Eddie Murray at 504. If David Ortiz can hit 50 more home runs in his career and stop, he will have 500.
No 600, no 700, but the odds of that are a lot steeper since there are so few players in the neighborhood.
Tanaka not sharp tonight but finally got run support. Now 12-3.
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AL WEST Uber Alles
