Tuesday night was the Giants' version of postseason fever. Every pitch was fraught with meaning. Every at-bat was tense. All the Giants' hopes and dreams are wrapped up in one skinny kid and a mid-November award announcement.

But the excitement faded early in the evening. Tim Lincecum — on the night he became the Giants' all-time single-season strikeout leader — had one of his worst outings this season. He lost to Colorado. And he might have lost the N.L. Cy Young Award in the process.

That doesn't diminish what Lincecum has done. In one year, the 24-year-old right-hander has given the Giants a new face. A new image. A new hope. And a tiny memory of late September excitement.

Of course none of that means a thing to Cy Young voters. They will be crunching the numbers, trying to weigh the importance of pitching in meaningful games vs. the difficulty of posting great numbers on a lousy team.

For now, this is still a two-man, five-day race between Brandon Webb and Lincecum and probably will remain so until the last day of the season. That's when Lincecum is scheduled to take the mound for the final time of his breakout season (assuming Tuesday's performance was nothing more than an aberration), searching for his elusive 18th win.

Webb, who got his 22nd win Monday, is scheduled to pitch Saturday. That might be a meaningless game for the Diamondbacks, who are three games behind the Dodgers.

At best, Lincecum will have four fewer victories than Webb. And 22 victories is not a number to be easily dismissed.

But on all key statistics except wins, Lincecum has been the dominant pitcher: hits, strikeouts and ERA.

Oh, and one more key statistic: age.

Lincecum's incredible season has come in his first full season in the majors. It comes when he's 24-going-on-15. That isn't part of the official Cy Young discussion, but it falls under style points.

And in the style-points category, Lincecum wins by a landslide.

"We know it's going to be close," Giants Manager Bruce Bochy said before the game, referring to the Cy Young race. "It's hard to pitch better than what Timmy's done this year. When you have a kid with this talent, Timmy's size and how young he looks, it adds to how intrigued people are by him."

And if he wins the award?

"It would be huge for Timmy and also for the organization."

Bochy said that none of the Cy Young talk has put added pressure on Lincecum. But Tuesday night he looked like he was feeling the weight. He wasn't the coolly efficient pitcher he has been most of the season. He walked five batters and threw over 100 pitches in 4 1/3 innings, and Bochy finally was forced to make a change.

But Lincecum also struck out nine, giving him 252 for the year. During Tuesday's game he moved past Juan Marichal and Jason Schmidt on the single-season strikeout list.

A year ago, the final days of the Giants season were like a grim funeral procession for a passing era. But this September, even though the team's record is bleak, there's a fresh bounce in the Giants' step. Tuesday, top draft pick Buster Posey and minor league pitcher Madison Bumgarner visited the ballpark and chatted with reporters. Bumgarner and instant fan favorite Pablo Sandoval were presented with minor league awards. The clubhouse is packed with fresh, hopeful faces that don't need a razor.

And then there's Lincecum, the electric kid who made the ballpark light up this season.

No matter what happens with the postseason awards, Lincecum already has accomplished something monumental: In six months he has remade the image of the Giants.