"Tim Lincecum didn't wait for Bruce Bochy to take the ball from him. The Giants' ace reached out to the manager before he had finished his last stride onto the mound and made a very conspicuous handoff. Then Lincecum walked to the dugout with his chin drooping toward his chest, while the bulk of the Giants' sellout crowd rose to offer a polite, almost parental, ovation.

Lincecum knew he had failed his team. The lack of run support didn't excuse a thing, not this time. He had just allowed back-to-back doubles and given the Diamondbacks a 4-1 lead with no one out in the sixth inning. He surrendered a total of nine hits Saturday, including a home run and four doubles, in what would become a 7-2 defeat that emptied all but a few grains from the Giants' 2011 hourglass.

Against anyone, this outing would have been weak. In a September ace-to-ace matchup with the division leaders, it was probably the most demoralizing game of Lincecum's career."