Giants run "Turn Back the Clock to 2011" promotion, realize it's a horrible, horrible promotion

Here's my vision: A kind of Bill & Ted's future, with students sitting in a sterile, amphitheater-like setting. A professor at the front, using his future stick to move through future slides on the future screen. And he's using pictures of Tim Lincecum to explain something. Either how luck can blind the otherwise objective analyst, or how objectively poor pitching was often mistaken for poor luck in the '10s. Students make semi-interested sounds and take notes.

The frustrating part of the vision: I have no idea which one the professor is teaching. We'll figure it out one day. But for now, Tim Lincecum looks like a snakebit, wholly unlucky pitcher. Which would be his second-straight year as a snakebit, wholly unlucky pitcher. Which makes you think that he isn't unlucky at all. Heck, we've been through this a million times. He has no idea where the ball is going. He's not unlucky. He's broken.

Then you think about the single that was _ this far over Marco Scutaro's glove. And you think about the diving play that Scutaro couldn't make to turn two. Does that happen to other pitchers? Of course it does. Sure, I mean, it has to, right? Sure as heck happens to other Giants pitchers, I know that.

Then you look at the location of the pitches that were hit. Some were poorly located. Some weren't. They didn't all deserve to cost Lincecum. But baseball's got a Will Munny stick up its backside. Deserve's got nothing to do with it. Lincecum gave up runs, just like the last time, and the time before that, and the time before that. His strikeout-to-walk ratio was good enough, but that's meaning less and less because of the punk kids these days, what with their wiffle-ball swings.

And for the 30th start in a row, I give up. A runner scored on Lincecum after reaching on a strikeout. Is it really fair to start up with the here-goes-Timmy again on something like that? Is it fair to keep going with the maybe-Timmy's-just-unlucky bit, too? Probably not.

In the future, man. In the future. They'll have all the answers, and they'll scan them into your scanbrain because it's the future. Right now, Lincecum's a mess, unless he's turned it around a bit, which would be obscured by unfettered baseball flukery.

I don't know. Seems like he pitched well enough tonight.

So I guess Tyler Chatwood is a thing now? Dammit.

/blows dust off old book

Alright, let's see how likely Chatwood is to be a thing -- the next Ian Kennedy or Steve Trachsel.

1. He was given to the Rockies by a team that exists to screw the Giants
Oh, cool, the Angels. They didn't have any use for Patrick Corbin or Tyler Skaggs, and then they couldn't use Tyler Chatwood. Who's in their starting rotation now? Oh, Joe Blanton and Jerome Williams. Bang up job, Angels, you absolute jackfaces. Enjoy your decaying superstars whose flesh will sate that horrid monkey for a fortnight before it hungers for more.

2. Mediocre strikeout numbers in the minors
He's young enough to where those strikeout numbers aren't necessarily super-predictive, but it's not like he was Stephen Strasburg in the minors, proving to the world that Triple-A was just a way-station. He's always seemed like a young pitcher who would have an adjustment period. Except against the Giants, apparently.

3. High walk numbers at every stop
Not sure how to read this one. The days of the Giants at the bottom of the OBP pile are mostly over. It was a good run, in which "good" means "awful." So I can't poke fun at the Giants for being especially impatient or hacky. They aren't like that, at least not to the extent that they were.

But I'm still trained to assume that pitchers who can't throw strikes will dominate the Giants. It's a flinch-type reflex. Sorry.

So the signs point to medium-high chance of Tyler Chatwood becoming a thing that exists only to annoy us. We'll update as events warrant.

I know he's hitting .453, but does anyone remember the last tough play Marco Scutaro has made at second? I understand that errors happen, and that not even Brandon Crawford can make every tough play. But this is an honest question. The last time Scutaro did something in the field that made you think, wow, wasn't expecting that play to get made. When was that?

Again, can't complain about the overall production from second. Just an open question from a curious fellow. I'm sure everything will get better over the next two years.

Just seemed like one of those games of inches tonight. The Giants missed some pitches by seven or eight inches in every at-bat, and they couldn't score any runs. That's just how close it was.