Lincecum’s excused absence from celebration

Oh, that Bay Area traffic. It can really mess up your plans sometimes. If you’re trying to get to a celebration, the last thing you want to see are brake lights.

But that’s exactly what happened to Tim Lincecum.

As many of you noticed on Saturday, the Giants NL West party was F-Bomb-free. Fans wondered where Big Time Timmy Jim was during the festivities.

The reason is pretty simple, although it could have been avoided.

It’s protocol for the next day’s starter to leave the ballpark during the tail end of the game to get home and rest, and Bruce Bochy told Lincecum to go home. But the timing seems odd. CSNBayArea’s Andrew Baggarly believes Lincecum left AT&T Park in the 7th inning when the Giants had a 7-3 lead.

Once the champagne and beer started flowing, Bochy announced that Lincecum — and most of the everyday regulars — would not play on Sunday. But Bochy chose not to inform Lincecum of this until after the outcome of the game was decided, fearing the wrath of the Baseball Gods, I suppose.

By the time Bochy called Lincecum and informed him that he could return to the ballpark to partake in the gigantic waste of champagne and beer, it was too late. Car and foot traffic around the ballpark would have made it impossible for Lincecum to make it back in time.

But I don’t understand why Lincecum didn’t just tell Bochy he was going to break protocol and stick around. Or why Bochy didn’t tell Lincecum to stay in the clubhouse.

I’m all for appeasing the Baseball Gods, but even they wouldn’t allow the Padres to come back from a 7-3 deficit with so much on the line. Bochy should have let Timmy stay!