I had some initial anxiety about his high pitch count, but after reading the after-game comments by Bochy and The Kid, I really think everyone just need to pay attention to what Lincecum is saying about his health, he should be the source people listen to.

He says he's fine, he's still not icing his arm, he was out the next day and throwing hard (again, like usual), what more do people need to hear to understand he's different?

Bochy also noted that he takes less pitches to warm up, so that allows him to take more pitches in-game relative to other starters.

And it's not like he's one of those dumb "take ball, throw hell of ball even though my arm is killing me" type of pitchers.

For one, he knows what's at stake. He turned down high 6 figures from the Indians, holding out for $1M, else he'd be doing his wonderful Timmy-ness for the Indians right now and he, Lee, and CC would be leading the Indians to an AL Central title right now.

Second, he's not looking for a contract like Cain and Lowry, he's going commando and going for arbitration gold and platinum with added bling on top. Think he's going to risk that by pushing his arm outside its comfort zone, just to keep his spot, like Jesse Foppert apparently did? He's already eyeing 2-5 seasons ahead, why would he risk that just to get a complete game shutout in his pocket for 2008? When he has accomplished so much with regards to getting a good salary in arbitration sooner than later.

And to build on your statement, not only will we not know for years, we won't even know if there is any connection between the 138 pitches and any future arm problems. It could be his throwing so much every day for so many years. It could be it was just the time for it to break, age, not usage, could be the trigger. It could be genetic and randomly broke when something else happened.

We don't know, we won't ever know.

And as much as I want to do that French dance as much as any other Giants fan, it's not about you or me, it's about Lincecum and what he wants to accomplish in his career, in his season.

Like Bochy noted, it's like being a parent, you are not comfortable letting them do things you would rather not let them do, but at some point you have to let go and trust in them that they will do the right thing. If he wants to accomplish this and he seems capable of doing it (he was still firing in mid-90's fastballs at that point) and, more importantly, been honest previously in saying when he was fine and when he was gassed, which Bochy says he has been, then why not let him take his steps without you (and pray he doesn't fall)?

Ultimately, this can be very insulting to Lincecum. Here are these outside people, albeit Giants fans, who think they know my body better than I do, think they know better about my welfare than I do, think I'm an idiot who is throwing just for the hell of doing it, think I'm not smart enough or mature enough to think about my future, think I don't want to do the fun French dance with them.

>>I'll just sit back and enjoy Lincecum and light prayerful candles fashioned from moose lard every time he pitches.

ENABLER!

It's time we speak up about this. Throwing 138 pitches on Saturday is not okay.

ELM: just wanted to note that Brian Wilson might be reading your blog - or least is paying attention to world around him. Baggarly quotes Wilson, saying "I felt the last week, all these guys were swinging (at) fastballs away."
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/extrabaggs/2008/09/14/adrian-gonzalez-on-lincecum-sandoval-amazes-again-wilson-throws-a-curve-padres-fans-are-passionate-about-the-chargers/

From a blog called Jefferson's Wall...

Baseball season is one week old. To celebrate America's pastime, I intend to write occasionally about some of the sport's most memorable games, complete with box scores supplied by www.retrosheet.org. We begin with one of the greatest duels in Major League history: Juan Marichal (SF Giants) vs. Warren Spahn (Milwaukee Braves) at San Francisco's Candlestick Park on July 2, 1963. The 42 year old veteran against the young Dominican, both eventually to be in Cooperstown. The crowd that night witnessed the greatest pitching performance in the history of the Stick, one of the greatest two-man duels of all-time.

For 15 innings, Warren Spahn and Juan Marichal put matching sets of zeros up on the Candlestick scoreboard. Inning after inning, deep into the night, nobody could score. Finally, the end came suddenly -- with one out in the 16th, shortly after midnight, the Giants' Willie Mays hit a home run.* Over the last eight innings, Marichal held the Braves to two hits and retired 17 in a row at one stretch.Spahn finished the night having allowed nine hits and just the one, intentional, walk. He struck out two. Marichal gave up eight hits, walked four and struck out 10. Each threw more than 200 pitches, Marichal threw a staggering total of 227 pitches.

Extra Notes: Spahn went 23-7 in 1963 (at age 42!) matching Christy Mathewson for most 20 game winning seasons: 13. He is the winningest lefty in baseball history with 363 wins.

Marichal pitched his 1st no-hitter a couple of weeks before this game, becoming the first Latin player to accomplish that feat. From 1962 through 1971 Marichal averaged 20 wins per season. He led the NL in wins in 1963 (25-8) and 1968 (26-9); in shutouts in 1965 (10) and 1969 (8); and in ERA in 1969 (2.10). A workhorse, he topped the league in innings pitched in 1963 and '68 and in complete games in '64 and '68. Pitching in eight All-Star Games, he compiled a 2-0 record and a 0.50 ERA in 18 innings. From 1963-69, Marichal, with a 154-65 record and a .703 winning percentage, won more games than any pitcher in baseball. More than Koufax, more than Whitey Ford, more than Cardinals great Bob Gibson. He also led baseball in complete games during the 1960s by a wide margin. In his career, Marichal completed 244 of his 457 starts. He ended his career, prematurely after a bad reaction to medication, with a record of 243-142 with a 2.89 lifetime ERA and 3,507 innings pitched. That's a lot of high-kick deliveries. (www.baseballlibrary.com and www.sanfranciscogiants.mlb.com)

Marichal was slightly built and threw a jillion screwballs. That is arguably the toughest pitch on the arm ever. Lincecum benefits from better training, better medical care and better nutrition.
The whole notion of pitch counts only came about when the dollars to pitchers got huge..It is an agent driven stat..

Tim is one of the best pure athletes in the game..Much ado about nothing.

Not a valid comparison. Baseball in the 1960's isn't the same as it is today. For starters, pitchers in that era usually faced a couple of banjo-hitting middle infielders in the lineup and thus likely didn't have to exert as much energy on each pitch.

Nowadays you won't find many lineups 1-8 with automatic outs.

While you have been lighting candles, I have been coming up with a list of things I would like to see happen to Mssrs. Bochy, Righetti and Sabean should Tim Lincecum or Matt Cain come down with injuries. So far I have:
tar,
feather,
eviscerate,
draw,
quarter, and
post heads on pikes for public display.

What he said. Sabean and Bochy must go.

I recall a story that The Kid took a few MPH off his fastball last year in order to throw more accurately. Might be the case this season. At any rate, the loss of MPH in the last month lines up with some of his most effective pitching. Don't have the figures, but he certainly seems to be walking fewer batters.

I guess Paul R. hasn't looked very closely at that fearsome Padres lineup. In '63, Marichal would've faced Hank Aaron, Eddie Matthews, Joe Torre, and probably Rico Carty when he pitched against the Braves; Lincecum faced the Gonzales family and a buncha Double-A guys. There were only 10 teams in the NL in the 60's, so I suspect the quality of the players was better overall than today (including the pitching, which accounts for the lower batting averages).