Once lights-out, Giants' Tim Lincecum becomes a liability It has been eight years since that Steve Finley grand slam, eight long years since the last truly great race between the Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants. The Dodgers and Giants have distanced themselves from the pack in the National League West this year, and the rivals face off in the final series of the regular season. Imagine the intensity if the division championship were to come down to that one last game, Clayton Kershaw for the Dodgers and Tim Lincecum for the Giants. Make that "anybody but Tim Lincecum" for the Giants. In a season in which so much has gone so right for the Giants, their two-time Cy Young winner is enduring a disaster of historic proportions. By one measure, no one has pitched a full season with a performance so poor in 97 years. The traditional benchmarks speak loudly enough. The Giants are 2-10 when Lincecum starts, 31-15 when one of their other four starters does. His earned-run average of 5.83 is the second-worst in the league. On Sunday, Lincecum draws the Texas Rangers, the highest-scoring team in the major leagues. That is discouraging for any team, urgent for one that depends on its starting pitchers to convert three or four runs into victory. "We talk about pitching being our strength," Giants Manager Bruce Bochy said. That's the key to us having a successful season - five starters giving you a chance to win. Ryan Vogelsong and Matt Cain rank among the top five in the league in ERA, with Vogelsong at 2.26 and Cain at 2.41. Madison Bumgarner (3.24) and Barry Zito (3.26) rank among the top 25. The Giants' bullpen ranks third in the league in ERA, despite the season-ending injury to closer Brian Wilson. In his absence, Santiago Casilla has converted 14 of 15 save opportunities. General Manager Brian Sabean bet Vogelsong had not been a one-season wonder at 33 and traded talented but erratic pitcher Jonathan Sanchez to the Kansas City Royals for outfielder Melky Cabrera, who leads the majors with a .364 batting average. Sabean also won big in swapping center fielders with the New York Mets, flipping Andres Torres for Angel Pagan. The Giants could use some offense from third baseman Pablo Sandoval, activated Saturday from the disabled list even as he faces a sexual assault investigation, from second baseman Freddy Sanchez, on the disabled list all season because of shoulder and back injuries, and from anybody at first base. "The offense is always going to be a work in progress," Sabean said. We needed a rebound year from [Aubrey] Huff. That didn't happen. We're scoring enough runs to keep things interesting. Nothing has been quite so interesting about the Giants this season as the decline of Lincecum. He finished last season third in the league in strikeouts, fifth in ERA, sixth in Cy Young voting. Then came this season. Statistical analysts rank pitchers by adjusted ERA, or ERA+. The figure takes into account how pitchers perform against their peers and how ballparks influence performance - that is, a 3.00 ERA is more impressive in the steroid era than the dead-ball era, and more impressive in Coors Field than AT&T Park. An ERA+ of 100 is average, and higher is better. In 2008, when Lincecum won his first Cy Young award, he led the league with an ERA+ of 168.