Tim Lincecum

The San Francisco Giants will rely on strong starting pitching, a struggling Padres team, and an easy September schedule to overtake the San Diego Padres and win the 2010 National League West.

The Schedule:

The Giants are currently three games back of the Padres with 28 games to play. 12 of the remaining games are against teams with sub .500 records, and another seven of those games are against the division leading Padres. The other games are against the struggling Cubs and the hated Dodgers.

With the calendar down to the last day of August, Major League Baseball is about to fire the starting gun on its stretch run.

Fans haven't been hesitant to point to the player or the plan that keeps the San Francisco Giants from soaring to the top of the NL West and well past the field in the wild-card race.

As it turns out, though, most things that fans insisted the Giants do to get things going have been done and things haven't gone very well at all in the last month. The club is on the verge of falling out of the division race and has to keep pace with the Philadelphia Phillies, a tall order, to win the Wild Card.

Former two-time CY Young award winner Tim Lincecum is currently suffering through a five-game losing skid.

The San Francisco pitcher's downward spiral is taking all possible playoff hopes of this team with him.

The Giants are currently six games back of the NL West leading San Diego Padres with only 31 games left in the season.

Lincecum is stuck on his worst stint of his career, after a 6-0 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday night.

The notion that Tim Lincecum's woeful performance in August was prompted by rookie catcher Buster Posey tipping pitches is utterly ridiculous.

Of course, the desperate search to explain how poorly Lincecum has pitched lately leads fans to suggest he cut his hair and has manager Bruce Bochy saying the two-time Cy Young Award winner needs to work harder to get in better condition during the offseason.

The San Francisco Giants are a team built around their starting pitching.  Over the past month, it's this aspect of the team that has been letting them down.

GM Brian Sabean has made several moves during the course of the season to bolster the offense.  Outfielders Pat Burrell, Jose Guillen, and Cody Ross give manager Bruce Bochy a lot of flexibility to go with the hot bat.  Infielder Mike Fontenot was a much needed acquisition when Edgar Renteria went on the DL.

As of late, Tim Lincecum has not been at the top of his game.

Around this time last year, Tim Lincecum was an NL Cy Young candidate in which he later won. But right now, Lincecum is not pitching like he used to... so what's wrong?

The two time defending Cy Young award winner is certainly not where he was last year, but why? Lincecum has the stuff and we know what he can do with it, he's just not showing us at the moment.

Yes, this is an incredibly bold conclusion. Actually, I haven't concluded anything, I've just posed a question.

The fact of the matter is, the Giants have an incredibly fickle nature. Remember in July, when they won 20 games for the first time since September of 2000? Well, right before that month, they had a seven-game losing streak. Are they going to once again bounce back?

Open your eyes Timm~ay!  Why are they all squinty like that?  Why are they all bloodshot?  ;)

A month or two ago on the road in Houston everyone watching the broadcast who was at one time a stoner could see it plain as day. Tim Lincecum on a day off was in the dugout as high as a kite.  

If a rough patch in a Major League Baseball season can be analogized to a gathering tempest, then the San Francisco Giants are heading into a doozy.

The club is sailing into a bank of cumulonimbus that isn't just dark; it's that inky, purplish shade of black. The kind that means your best option is to find Toto, stick your head between your knees, and kiss your tokus goodbye.