The Giants have jumped out to a quick 1-0 lead over the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 5 of the NLCS. Andres Torres led off the inning with a walk and moved to third on a Freddy Sanchez single, which was followed by a visit to the mound by the Phillies pitching coach. After Aubrey Huff lined out to first, Posey sent a grounder to second baseman Chase Utley. Utley went to tag Sanchez and then get the double play at first but he didn’t get ahold of the ball. Instead Utley got the force at second for out #2, thus allowing Torres to score.
Tim Lincecum put together a dominant first inning, getting a pop-out, fly-out and ground out on 12 pitches. While strikeouts might be the sexy out for a pitcher, they can often lead to higher pitch counts. After all, a pitcher generally has to set up that third strike with pitches outside the strike zone, thus running up the count. Twelve pitch innings will generally take care of business for Lincecum.
Head on over to McCovey Chronicles in-game thread for more coverage.