Play of the Day: Castro Knocks Out Lincecum

Last night's Cub game should be Exhibit A in the argument that people who bet money on baseball games would be better off just putting their wallets in a blender and hitting "liquefy."

The Cubs faced Tim Lincecum with a lineup containing Micah Hoffpauir batting third plus Kosuke Fukudome and Koyie Hill in the lineup.  Short of Alan Trammel taking a page from Jody Davis' playbook and actually not fielding a team at all, that was about as close as the Cubs can come to just forfeiting a game to the Giants.  I would have figured placing a bet on the Giants last night would have been a safer bet than betting that water is wet.  It turns out that water may, in fact, be dry.

When the game started, some pod person in Tim Lincecum's uniform went out and started throwing batting practice. The inning was capped by a two-run homerun by none other than Mr. April, Mr. Fukudome himself, to make it 4-0 before the Giants fans even knew what was going on.  As much as I would like to make his McCovey Cove blast the Play of the Day simply because Kosuke doesn't have that many good days when the calendar changes to summer, I have to choose another moment a bit later on.

You see, the Cubs are still the Cubs and while they provided Ryan Dempster with a surprising amount of offense, the defense was busy being the Cubs we have come to know and giving up extra outs and unearned runs.  Soon it was 4-2 and Lincecum was looking like Lincecum again and the Giants were starting to get confident.

Then more miracles occurred with two outs in the fourth inning.  Koyie Hill got a hit.  Then Ryan Dempster got a hit.  Then Tyler Colvin drew a walk.  Suddenly the Cubs had a threat, but there were still two outs and this smelled of yet another Cubesque moment of coming really close but accomplishing nothing.  Then Starlin Castro stepped up.

He took a Lincecum fastball back up the middle to score two to re-establish the four run lead.  Lincecum finished the inning by retiring AAAA sensation, Micah Hoffpauir, but he was then done for the night.  The momentum had been swung back to the Cubs in a way we haven't seen for weeks. Score a TKO for Castro.