MLB Notebook: For now, Lincecum set as Game 4 NLCS starter
BY Associated Press
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
10/16/12 at 3:00 AM
Tim Lincecum is set to start Game 4 of the NL championship series for the San Francisco Giants, as long as he's not needed in relief for Monday night's Game 2.
Manager Bruce Bochy says Lincecum told him he felt fine to pitch Monday night after throwing two hitless, scoreless innings in Sunday night's 6-4 Game 1 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals.
The two-time NL Cy Young Award winner has pitched in relief three times this postseason. He was demoted to the bullpen after posting a 10-15 record and NL-worst 5.18 ERA in the regular season but has found his stride so far in the playoffs.
Lincecum pitched the 2010 Game 5 World Series clincher for the Giants at Texas.
Reds extend Dusty Baker's deal: Dusty Baker missed the Cincinnati Reds' division title celebration, still recovering from a heart issue and a mini-stroke in a Chicago hospital. One win away from the NL championship series and another celebration, he came up short.
The Reds are giving him another chance to take his team deep into the postseason.
The 63-year-old manager agreed to a two-year contract extension Monday, the same length as his last deal. The Reds have won the NL Central title in two of the last three years under Baker, losing in the first round of the playoffs.
The Reds have won 169 games in the last three seasons, their best such showing in 30 years. Their two division titles in three years mark their best stretch since Sparky Anderson led the Big Red Machine to back-to-back World Series titles in 1975-76.
The next challenge is to take that next step - the Reds haven't reached the NL championship series since 1995.
Yankees' Girardi attends father's funeral: Jerry Girardi was memorialized Monday as a dedicated laborer who built the ranch-style Illinois home where he raised five highly successful children - two doctors, a math professor, an accountant and New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi.
The Yankees manager, who attended the funeral service in Peoria, Ill., during an off day in the American League Championship Series, sat quietly alongside his family. None of the Girardis spoke, and they left the church quickly to attend the burial in Tampico, a tiny north-central Illinois town.
