The San Francisco Giants had a series sweep of the two time defending National League Champion Philadelphia Phillies all wrapped up with a bow on top.
Tim Lincecum had dominated the Phillies all day long and with one out in the ninth inning, he had 11 strikeouts and zero walks.
Without walking a single batter until giving Shane Victorino the free pass in the ninth, Lincecum had thrown just 106 pitches.
And Giants manager Bruce Bochy pulls the best pitcher in the game?
Are you kidding me?
It wasn't as if Lincecum had been struggling with command during the game, and it wasn't as if the Giants only had a one run lead. They were up 4-1.
The walk to Victorino was Philadelphia's first walk off the game and the tying run was still in the on deck circle with Placido Polanco coming up.
Just as Giants analyst FP Santangelo stated in the postgame, the Phillies were glad that someone else was coming into the game.
They couldn't hit Lincecum for their lives.
"The Freak" was about go throw a complete game win and up his record to 5-0 with what would have been still a 1.00 ERA.
Yet Bochy doesn't give his two-time Cy Young Award winner at least one more batter?
Worst case scenario, Polanco hits a two-run homer, the Giants still have the lead, and you can bring in Brian Wilson with nobody on and one out.
Is it really that hard to show a tiny bit of faith to the best pitcher in baseball?
The blown save wasn't Wilson's fault (although he was a little bit off his game), it was solely on the shoulders of Bochy who in one game showed how god awful he is as a big league manager.
Not only does he take Lincecum out prematurely, but he puts backup outfielder Eugenio Velez into the game as a "defensive" replacement for Mark DeRosa (who moved to second base).
Anyone who follows the Giants knows that Velez' baseball IQ is amongst the worst in baseball.
Velez then goes on to drop a ball that could have been caught near the wall to allow the go-ahead run to score, and on the following hitter he drops a can of corn that allows another run to score.
And what happens? San Francisco gets one run the next inning but fail to get the tying run and lose.
The game would have been tied if it weren't for Velez' error. And one more thing, Velez had a chance to redeem himself and get a hit to tie the game with runners at second and third with one out down by just a single run.
But Velez, who is 1-for-his-last-23 coming into the game grounded out to first and Juan Uribe was thrown out at home.
The fact that the Matt Downs—a solid defensive second baseman—was taken out of the ball game for a worse defensive player is Velez is absolute joke.
It is absolute lunacy.
Furthermore, Bochy made even more head scratching decisions throughout the game.
He didn't put the bunt on in an obvious bunting situation in the bottom of the tenth and he failed to pinch hit John Bowker, who is arguably the best available bat the Giants have off the bench.
If the Giants fail to make the postseason, games like this will be the reason why. Their manager is completely incompetent.
PS: Hey Bochy, have you seen the two Cy Young Awards in Lincecum's car?
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