If you watched the 9th inning of tonight's Giants game, you probably noticed that Brian Wilson has developed a new pitch. This is indeed true and it appears to be a very effective 2 seam sinker. I don't think Wilson has thrown the pitch prior to facing Jamey Carroll. If any of you happened to miss it, here is the pitch (just scroll to the end of the highlight)

Wilson's Two-Seam Sinker

Now, the movement on that pitch is absolutely insane. But if you follow the Giants carefully, you will probably remember that Timmy's two-seam sinker also feature(d) the same action. The movement, of course, is nowhere near Wilson's pitch tonight, but the tailing action is definitely there. I'm not like Xanthan and don't know how to do cool computerized charts but I did find a couple of Timmy's highlight reels from 2007. When he first came up, his two-seam fastball was as high as 97-99 MPH. Below, you can see that it had the same movement as that of Wilson's

Timmy's Two-Seamer #1 @ New York Mets (LOL @ SHORT HAIR)

The first two batters got completely destroyed and the movement on the pitch against David Wright just exploded against a right handed hitter. This is similar to what Wilson did against Carroll but at a much higher velocity. Now, Timmy's fastball seemed to have gained some velocity over the last couple of starts so we can hope that he rediscovers some of this tailing action (not that he needs it now that he has the change up).

Timmy's Two-Seamer #2 @ Houston Astros (Third Hitter)

The third hitter appears to be Hunter Pence and he had no chance at making contact against a pitch that exploded across the plate when it was clear to him that it was coming straight over the plate. Just look at how Molina's adjustment in order to catch it.

Now the point of my post is obviously about Wilson and not about Timmy. As dominant as Wilson was last year, he is going to make the league silly if he can harness that pitch. With a cutter to steal strike one followed by an overwhelming 4-seam fastball, Wilson can easily finish anyone off with his new pitch.

After tonight’s victory against the Philadelphia Phillies, I’ve decided that this would be a good time to post this. After Tim Lincecum’s Game 1 victory over Roy Halladay, I began to search for a way to record the midnight replay via the online stream at KNBR 680. In the end, I found this really nice toolbar called Freecorder. This neat little tool allows you to search for your favorite station and record any stream with one click of the button. Instead of waiting for iTunes to release the games, you can save the games called by our very own local broadcasters. The best thing is that it is absolutely free.

Go to: http://www.applian.com/freecorder4/

There are many functions with this toolbar so you should play around with it. I am going to focus only on the recording aspect.  After downloading it, a toolbar will appear on your Firefox or Internet Explorer browsers. Click the little icon between the "play" and "sound" icons and click "Add and Edit Stations." Under the Search for Stations box, enter the keyword "cumulus" and a list of stations will pop up. Select "KNBR – OAK/SF" and this station will now be selected and you should see "KNBR" on your toolbar. Hit the "Play" button and you should be able to hear the KNBR stream live without going to the KNBR site. Now click the "Setting" icon and a window will pop up with a few options. Make sure only one of the "Windows Vista Audio Technology" or "Applian Audio Driver Technology" is checked because if you have both, you will have two copies of the game. This will cause complications when you put the files into your iPod if you choose to do so. As with the temporary storage size, I set it fairly high because I don’t want my recording to be interrupted when I’m asleep. Game 1’s recording was about 208 MBs so set it at least at 500 MB.

With that said, I am still fairly new with this tool so I do not know how to make a timed recording at 12 AM. When it is 11:55 PM, start playing the stream on your toolbar and click the "Record Audio Tool" icon and your stream will start recording. You would need to leave your computer overnight and prevent it from going to sleep when you leave it unattended. You can change the power settings in the Control Panel. Next day, stop the stream and click the "Play Tool" icon and you should see all of your audio files. The software will split the recording into multiple files because the tool automatically split segments (innings and commercials) into different files. How neat is that? Now you can put them into your iPod and enjoy Kuip’s (or Jon’s or Flem’s) call whenever you like.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

GO GIANTS!