 |  |
| Lincecum | Thompson |
| 7-2, 2.57, 10.6 K/9 | 2-3, 4.50, 2.8 K/9 |
This might be the youngest-looking pitching matchup since (Bill Simmons mode engage) Gary Coleman took on Emmanuel Lewis in a lost episode of Battle of the Network Stars.
Lincecum strikes out 3.8 times as many batters as WonderBrad does, which is probably the highest gap between two starters in baseball this year. Meanwhile, the Cardinals will likely be without Colby Rasmus tonight, after he spent some time under general anesthesia. I was going to make a thirteen pitchers joke here, but an unexpected benefit of having Mark DeRosa is that La Russa actually does have five real-live-outfielders on the roster, and is thus immune to mild depth-based ribbing in this situation. He's always a few steps ahead of us.