Giants' Zito, Lincecum back: Bumgarner next project

• Zito is back. Lincecum looks like old self. Next up: Bumgarner
• Bumgarner has a 6.85 earned run average over his past nine starts
• Zito says it helps that he's a calmer, more mature pitcher

SAN FRANCISCO – Barry Zito is back from five years in baseball's wilderness. Tim Lincecum again looks remarkably like the dominant pitcher he was before this season.

Fixing Madision Bumgarner after a rough month shouldn't pose nearly as much of a challenge.

If the San Francisco Giants are correct that they've smoothed out the recent problems of Game 2 starter Bumgarner, this World Series is getting a whole lot tougher for the Detroit Tigers.

The first two projects combine Wednesday to dominate the Tigers.

Suddenly, Zito is money – not just inexorably linked to the subject of money.

Holding the Tigers to a run and six hits into the sixth inning and turning the matchup with Detroit ace Justin Verlander into a mismatch is the World Series Game 1 caliber stuff the Giants thought they were getting nearly six years ago when they enticed Zito across the bay from Oakland with a seven-year, $126 million contract.

A guy would swim the distance for that kind of cash, at the time the most ever given a pitcher.

But it's been an upstream struggle for Zito, whose record since joining the Giants is 58-69. This year's 15-8 record was the first time he was above .500 for a season. His lowest point was being left off the post-season roster when the Giants won the 2010 World Series.

The highest point yet was trotting off the AT&T Park mound in the sixth inning Wednesday, tipping his cap to adoring fans who was the antithesis of the home crowds that have hounded Zito for much of his San Francisco tenure.

"Just the opportunity was just magical," said Zito. "To be able to go up against Verlander and give our team a chance to go up 1 0, and the fact that we won, it's just kind of surreal."

And in came two-time Cy Young Award winner Lincecum, relegated to the bullpen after his own surreal season, the worst of his career. He promptly struck out five of the seven batters he faced and got the other two on easy grounders.

Since he's been relieving, Lincecum has stopped pitching with a windup, a move designed to alleviate mechanical problems that would take more time to iron out than is available amid the urgency of the postseason.

But something else might be better serving Lincecum.

"I'm just sitting around until my name gets called," he says, comparing it with the four days of thinking between starts, especially distracting if things aren't going well. "If it does, I'm just riding the adrenaline. It's as simple a mindset as you can have. I'm just going to go out there and get my outs until they tell me I'm done. That's pretty much all I'm thinking about."

Teammate Jeremy Affeldt summed up Lincecum's work:

"That was some of the best stuff I've seen him throw since 2010. The curve ball was really breaking sharp, the slider was good, the split was falling off the table, fastball was dancing everywhere. That's him."

So, where's that guy been all year?

Affeldt says he wouldn't venture a guess, but certainly knows what he sees now.

"From a reliever standpoint, he pitches on adrenaline," Affeldt says. "He doesn't think. He just challenges hitters."

And that's what makes Bumgarner's start so crucial. If he can perform notably better than the 6.85 earned run average over his past nine starts – including two in the postseason -- manager Bruce Bochy can resist the temptation to give a Game 6 start, which is when Bumgarner's turn would come around again, to Lincecum.

Bumgarner and Bochy said they believe a mechanical flaw has been corrected and the 23-year-old will be back to the form that produced a 14-7 record and 2.83 ERA before the sudden slump.

"Just some small things that might have affected my arm and made it more difficult to throw," is how Bumgarner describes his problems. "I think we've got it fixed. There's no way to tell 100 percent until you get out there and get going game speed."

Nearly lost in San Francisco's 8-3 win in Game 1 was a similar issue the Tigers hoped to see solved at game speed.

Erstwhile closer Jose Valverde, who was removed from his role after a four-run ninth-inning ALCS meltdown against the Yankees, said Tuesday that he thought he had resolved his own mechanical breakdowns.

The seventh inning of a game his team trailed by five runs seemed like a good time to give him a test run. But he retired just one of five batters – and that was Lincecum.

"He wasn't terrible, he just wasn't good," said Tigers manager Jim Leyland. "For whatever reason, it just doesn't seem to be coming out quite right. It's a little bit puzzling."

And going to the bullpen late innings is going to remain perplexing for Leyland, who used left-hander Phil Coke the rest of the Yankees series. Right-handed batters hit .396 against Coke this season and the first five in the Giants batting order are right-handed or switch-hitters.

First, though, the Tigers have to get to save situations. And that means doing a better job against San Francisco starters.

Game 1 looked like it could be a pitching mismatch, considering Verlander is a top candidate to repeat his 2011 Cy Young, though probably not his MVP.

There it was: Zito, average fastball this season, 84.56 mph; Verlander, average changeup this year, 86.19 mph.

It used to be you knew quickly how things were going to go for Zito. If he could get his big, looping curve over the plate, hitters couldn't wait for fastballs that should be too slow for prime time. If not, ouch!

He's added a cutter this season, which helps keeps hitters a bit more honest, but he still didn't get over 85 mph Wednesday.

"There's no secrets about Zito," Leyland said. "You know what he does. He does it very well. He throws this when you're looking for that, and vice versa."

Zito says it helps that he's a calmer, more mature pitcher.

"Now that I've been through some tribulations, everything I've done to come out the other side, it's been incredible," he said.

"I came over here to deliver. I'm going to capitalize."