Former two-time Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum can continue a recently hot stretch at home on Wednesday afternoon, when the San Francisco Giants close out a three-game series with the Chicago Cubs at AT&T Park.
Lincecum is 2-1 with a 2.76 earned run average in his last five home starts and was a 6-2 winner on Friday against Minnesota, allowing just two runs in six innings while surrendering five hits and working around six walks.
Lincecum also threw two wild pitches and only 57 strikes in 112 offerings.
"With good pitchers like that, they figure out how to get outs when they need to," Twins catcher Kurt Suzuki said. "Obviously, Lincecum, he knows what he's doing out there and what he's got to do to get guys out. He gets in a situation like that and sometimes he gets better."
A win Wednesday would give Lincecum triumphs in back-to-back starts for the first time in 2014.
He's just 1-4 in seven starts against the Cubs, though, a stretch during which Chicago's Starlin Castro has fared well -- going 7-for-19 with three extra- base hits.
The Cubs counter with right-hander Edwin Jackson, who's coming off his shortest start of the season.
The veteran allowed eight runs on nine hits in just four innings of an 11-1 loss at San Diego on Friday, which ended a stretch in which he'd posted a 1.80 ERA across three outings.
"It was a terrible job of making adjustments all around. When you don't make adjustments quick enough, that's what happens," he said. "If you don't execute pitches, it really doesn't matter what team it is, they can hit the ball hard."
Jackson has faced the Giants five times and is 1-2 with a 4.99 ERA.
On Tuesday, Tim Hudson tossed seven scoreless innings and the Giants blanked the Cubs, 4-0. Hudson (5-2) scattered six hits for the Giants, who have won five of their last six games.
Jake Arrieta (1-1) gave up four runs on seven hits and a walk over six frames for Chicago, which has alternated wins and losses over its last eight games.
The Giants lost four of seven meetings with the Cubs a season ago.
[SportsNetwork.com]
