Ryan Vogelsong, ‘Freak Whisperer'

Tim Lincecum has gone 12-straight innings without allowing a run in advance of Tuesday's start in scorching hot Washington D.C. This normally wouldn't be news, but the Freak's been pretty awful this year ... right up until Ryan Vogelsong started chatting him up during a previous June 22 start.

After cameras caught that, Vogelsong's been getting the nickname "Freak Whisperer." But he downplayed it when asked by Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle.

"That's a pretty cool nickname, but it's just part of being a good teammate," Vogelsong said. "As much as I don't like to admit it, I've been around the block a few times here, and it wasn't a good block to be around.

"I didn't tell him anything he didn't know."

Schulman's noted that the nickname is "gaining steam on the Internet and Twitter." He might be a bit ahead of himself, but if Lincecum continues his dominant pitching against the Nationals, there's a good chance the nickname could explode. (And at the very least, it's awesome to read that sentence in the Chron.)

Vogelsong's a perfect candidate to break down the struggles of a pitcher too. Though he might not have a pair of Cy Young Awards on his résumé, Vogey's been through plenty in his time in the bigs.

"What you're dealing with right now I went through for 10 years," Vogelsong said. "I can't tell you exactly how to get out of this, but I can tell you what I did to get out of this and what didn't work for those 10 years."

As everyone knows, Vogelsong was one of the biggest success stories in 2011, picking up an All-Star nod himself as he finally (re?)emerged as a quality starting MLB pitcher.

Lincecum won't ever experience that, but if Vogelsong can keep getting his Freak Whisperer on, it's possible that Timmy could experience a pretty amazing success story in the second half of the season. And that would be just fine for Giants fans.

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