Another "Routine" Outing for Tim Lincecum

by sharksrog on Mar 30, 2008 4:26 PM EDT

I apologize in advance to anyone who is tired of reading about Tim Lincecum. If you are, one of two courses of action are available to you:

First, you could take the obvious step of ignoring this post.

Second, you could read it and possibly learn something about one of the most exciting young pitchers in baseball.

Unfortunately I could only listen to this game on radio. To make matters worse, I had technical problems with my computer (I think "mechanical problems" is a euphism for "operator error.") so I missed Tim's first inning. I do know that he recorded three straight air outs in the inning on nine pitches, six of which were strikes. Tim didn't strike out a batter -- but then went on to fan nine hitters in his final four innings of work.

On the evening, Tim threw only 67 pitches (It was drizzling throughout his effort.), 43 (64%) of them strikes. On the 58 pitches I recorded, 21 were balls, 13 were called strikes, 10 were swinging strikes, 11 were foul balls and three were put into play (none for hits). Guessing at Tim's first inning, let's proffer 67 pitches, 24 balls, 14 called strikes, 11 swinging strikes, 12 foul balls and six balls in play.

In the final four innings, Tim threw only six strikes and seven balls to the 13 batters he faced. Assuming his nine first-inning pitches would indicate at least two first-pitch strikes in the inning, he would wind up at seen first-pitch strikes and nine balls. To be honest, that's about as poorly as he did last year. Worse, of the six batters to whom I listed and recorded first-pitch balls, Tim immediately threw ball two to four of the six.

But Tim seemed to be able to throw strikes when he needed to, walking only one (which came on a batter to whom he went 2-0, 2-1, 2-2, 3-2, walk).

The Giants' announcers were most impressed with his ability to throw his change up for strikes on 3-1 and 3-2 counts. They said he had all four pitches working tonight.

One poster asked how Tim did when he fell behind, so here are the results after 1-0, 2-0 and 3-2. Tim had no 3-0 or 3-1 counts. The results are over the game's last four innings, since I missed the first. With only nine pitches in the first inning, though, Tim likely wasn't behind more than one hitter.

1-0 -- Walk, two popups, one ground out, two strike outs.

2-0 -- Walk, popup, two strike outs.

3-1 -- Walk and three strike outs.

Clearly Tim was well able to pitch from behind tonight -- even though that isn't always the case.

I will endeavor to find out he did when behind in the count last season and will make a follow-up post here.

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all four pitches working

huh. in the mlb.com article, it says he was really just using the fastball and changeup.

http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080329&content_id=2464630&vkey=news_sf&fext=.jsp&c_id=sf

"The 23-year-old right-hander relied on fastballs and changeups, explaining that he couldn't get the feel of his breaking pitches while warming up."

by wily mo on Mar 30, 2008 4:34 PM EDT reply actions

Very good point

You make a very good point here, Wily, even if you strike out far too often. :) MLB's gameday showed Tim throwing primarily fastballs and change ups, with handful of sliders thrown in for good measure. Gameday showed nary a single curve ball, even though when Tim was drafted that was considered his best pitch, in a close race with his fastball.

Since the darn game wasn't on local TV or even mlb.tv, I wasn't able to watch the game. The closest I got was being told by Tim's dad that I could find his nine strikeout pitches on mlb.tv during the second inning of yesterday's telecast. With my small computer screen and no ability to put the nine extremely brief clips into slow motion, I can only say that it appeared to me that he struck out about four with the fastball, about four with the change and perhaps one or two with the slider (although since I have never seen Tim threw what I knew for sure was a slider, I'm merely guessing here. But a couple of pitches didn't quite look like change ups and didn't seem to have the bite of Tim's curve.).

I'm back home now after a week in the Seattle area, and I just remembered that I may be able to get yesterday's game On Demand on Comcast. If so, I will be able to turn on the slow-mo and perhaps give a more definitive answer. Still, that will be only nine of Tim's 67 pitches on the night -- albeit arguably the nine most important.

By the way, isn't it fairly impressive to strike out nine in five innings while averaging only 13.4 pitches per inning? That is one of the best aspects of the outing that hasn't yet been mentioned in anything I have read.

by sharksrog on Mar 30, 2008 11:27 PM EDT up reply actions

thank you for these

posts, i honestly love them. I will NEVER tire of hearing about lince.

Marcello on Tim Lincecum's 2008: "Yeah, he only pitched 180 innings last year, who knows if he can handle 200?!?!??"

by realityconquest on Mar 30, 2008 11:44 PM EDT reply actions

You should have seen

You should have seen how cute he was at the age of five. Come to think of it, he doesn't look all that much older today. :)

by sharksrog on Mar 31, 2008 1:26 AM EDT up reply actions

Two posts?

Yes, I know, just ignore. But really, is it necessary to post two separate Tim Lincecum posts in one day? March 30, this one at 3:26 PM Central and the other ("Tim Lincecum from Behind") at 4:18 PM. I love Lincecum, but that is overkill.

by jonk1982 on Mar 31, 2008 6:08 PM EDT reply actions

I see your point

I see your point, Jonk. Also, it appears you may have been born the same year as my son. I actually wrote the first post on Friday night after the game, but the laptop I was using in the Seattle area wouldn't allow me to preview the post, so I thought I was locked out from posting it and would do so when I returned home. Thus the close timing of the two posts.

Frankly I wish others would post in this same level of detail about some of the other top prospects so I could learn more about them. I truly feel we are in a bit of a golden age of prospects right now -- although I a also realize that while some of the guys I am considering "prospects" in this context are actually started on their way to the Hall of Fame (such as Pujols and Cabrera), some of these good prospects will sadly flame out.

Incidentally, I will be surprised if Matt Cain makes the Hall, although it certainly isn't impossible. In order to have a shot at doing so IMO, Matt needs to improve his control (which he did a VERY nice job of in August and September of last season, walking only 1.80 per nine during those two months) and find a way to get his pitches by batters just a little better. From Matt's first start and his 14-pitch battle with Todd Helton for Matt's last out of that appearance, he has allowed too many foul balls when batters swing at his pitches. He's certainly good in that regard -- but far from great.

by sharksrog on Apr 1, 2008 4:55 PM EDT up reply actions

According to gameday

According to mlb.com's gameday, last night Matt Cain yielded 20 foul balls on fastballs while achieving only four swinging strikes with the pitch. Nary a fastball swung at after the first two innings remained untouched, as even the one swing-through Matt achieved with the pitch in the third was on a foul tip that was held by catcher Bengie Molina.

IMO Bengie didn't help Matt much by often calling for fastball after fastball on a night in which Matt's slider in particular was working quite well.

by sharksrog on Apr 2, 2008 2:27 PM EDT reply actions