Potential Pyrrhic Win

The San Jose Mercury News reports:

"In Tim Lincecum's first game of the season, the Giants made a very questionable gamble with their slight-framed, fireballing right-hander. They heated him up for 28 pitches in the fourth inning, and after a rain delay of one hour, 14 minutes, they sent him back to the mound to start the fifth."

The only caveat to the move, and I'm not enough of a medical expert to say whether this matters, but it is at least worth taking under consideration, is that Lincecum has never iced his arm... in his life. Seriously. For some bizarre reason the kid grew up not icing, heating or massaging his arm. In an anecdotal sense this makes his arm "nails," as Lenny Dykstra would say, but I don't know what that means regarding the elasticity of his elbow, shoulder and scapular joints and tendons.

Seeing Merkin Valdez pitch well to start the game was a definite good sign for the season. Maybe the one time top prospect can turn into a fourth or fifth starter over the next few years. Stay posted.