Lincecum and Wilson All-Stars

The all-star selections were made official on Sunday, and surprisingly to some, two San Francisco Giants were selected. Everybody across the nation has heard of Tim Lincecum and is recognizing his dominance this season, so he was a lock to make the team. At this point, he has as good a shot at starting the game for the NL as anybody. The other Giant selected to the team was closer Brian Wilson. This selection came as a surprise to a lot of baseball fans as Wilson does lead the league in saves, but his 4.37 era and 1.40 whip is nowhere near the other elite closers in the league. One guy who some felt should have gotten the node over Wilson was the Dodgers' Takashi Saito. The Dodgers closer is marginally better than Wilson in every statistical category this year except for saves. Other than that, I am glad to see Wilson get the nod. Young closers can never have too much confidence and Wilson should feel like he's officially arrived as one of the games better closers with this selection. The Giants also Aaron Rowand on the 5-man list of potential final picks, but every other player on the list has had a better year than Rowand and it would be extremely surprising to see him get voted in over the likes of David Wright and Pat Burrell.

The two Giant all-stars weren't the only talk around town on Sunday. Barry Zito also was gaining some headlines after he turned in a great performance on Saturday. Zito struck out 10 batters for the first time since mid-2004 and only allowed the Dodgers two hits over 7+ innings pitched. One reason why he was able to dominate like he did Saturday was because of his increased velocity. He had been around 83-85 for most of the first 3 months of the year, but over his last couple starts, his velocity has risen to 86-87 on a more consistent basis. He now has 20 strikeouts over his last 3 stars and his number of strikeouts has finally surpassed the number of walks allowed on the season. I was begining to think that that was impossible about a month ago. Zito's win on Saturday also pushed to within 4 games of the first place Diamondbacks. I said in the mid-season review that if Zito can pitch better in the second half, the Giants will be a much better team and I do expect that to happen. Not expecting Zito to make it back to .500, but I am expecting to see his era drop back into the 4's and I don't expect his whip to be around 1.80 all year long.