San Francisco Giants

Tim Lincecum is the face of the San Francisco Giants, but in a time where team loyalty is down and money is king, is it possible that he and other beloved Giants will end up elsewhere?

If there was ever a pitcher in baseball who deserves a lifetime contract extension, it would be Tim Lincecum.

Buster Posey was a force of nature around the Bay Area even before he became a fixture in the San Francisco Giants' clubhouse.

Tim Lincecum has already etched his name in Giants history. His is the stuff of legend, and he's only in his fifth major league season.

The Giants right-hander won back-to-back National League Cy Young awards in his first two seasons, becoming the only pitcher in major league history to accomplish that feat.

He led all of baseball in strikeouts in each of his first three full big-league seasons.

The season is only 10 percent over, give or take depending on the the number of games each team has played. Hardly a milestone moment that allows early returns to hold any significance.

But it does offer a little more of a view than preseason predictions, does it not? Predictions that I did not make.

Thus, in election night coverage style, I will look at the early returns and make projections. These are the teams I forecast as winning the races for the eight playoff spots in order of record:

The panda is, by nature, a docile creature.

DreamWork's Kung Fu Panda was a lovable novice who needed to learn how to harness his considerable talents.

Lovable though he may be, the 2011 version of Pablo Sandoval resembles neither a kung fu panda nor a real one.

That’s why it may be time for a new nickname.

Pablo Sandoval hurt himself during batting practice (strained triceps) in Denver ahead of the Giants-Rockies series finale Wednesday, according to Giants beat writers Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle and Andrew Baggarly of the Mercury News.

The Giants will now have to shift some personnel.

So the San Francisco Giants made a mistake.

It’s official.

The San Francisco Giants are my favorite team in baseball. I root for the White Sox as a rule, but it’s hard not to like the Giants.

Voting a full World Series share to a gravely ill clubhouse employee, Tim Lincecum giving a big fat check to help pay for a comatose Giants fan and now this?

Coming into Monday's opening game of a three-game series between the Giants and Rockies at Coors Field, the buzz around baseball was how the Colorado Rockies have surged to a 12-3 start right out of the gate in 2011.  Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki have been called the best 1-2 offensive punch in the game and the Rockies seemed to be unstoppable.

The top two pitchers for the San Francisco Giants and Philadelphia Phillies are arguably the top tandems in the Major Leagues. 

Each of these pitchers is an ace in his own right, but combined with the other, they make a great one-two punch for their respective teams.