Goldschmidt continues to own Lincecum

It’s uncanny.

Tim Lincecum (outside of this season) has made a career of
making National League batters look silly.

Yet, there’s one batter who has Lincecum’s number, and
that dominance continued Wednesday night at AT&T Park in
San Francisco.

That batter’s name is Paul Goldschmidt, and the
Diamondbacks’ first baseman once again feasted on the two-time
Cy Young Award winner in Arizona’s 4-1 win.
Goldschmidt connected with a Lincecum slider and deposited
it into the left field seats in the 6th inning.
The solo blast broke a 1-1 tie and proved to be
the winning margin for the Diamondbacks.

In 299 career at-bats, Goldschmidt has 12 home runs; four
of them have come off of Lincecum, who had yielded only 71
homers in 1081.1 innings entering Wednesday night’s
contest. This season, Lincecum has allowed only five
round-trippers, but two have come off of Goldschmidt’s
bat.

Since August 2 of last year, only 12 home runs have been
hit off of “The Freak”, and one-third of them have been
courtesy of Goldschmidt.

Lincecum was asked after the game if he’s ever encountered
a hitter who has “had his number” like Goldschmidt has.

“Not that I can think of,” he said. “Just because he
stands out for the last two years and he just seems to hit
that big home run that takes a big part of the game and
kind of deflates us.”

Three of the four homers that Goldschmidt has against
Lincecum have given the Diamondbacks the lead. Arizona is
4-0 against the Giants in games where Goldschmidt has
homered off of Lincecum.

So, what’s the secret to Goldschmidt’s success against one
of the best pitchers in the last quarter-century? The
second-year major league slugger doesn’t know.

“I wish I knew, because then I’d try to do it all the
time,” he said.

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