The Return of the Lincecum Heater

Tim Lincecum's velocity which had seemed to have been missing for a month now appears to have returned even if only for a night. The zip was back in fastball as he spent most of the night sitting comfortably between 92 and 93 and having the reach back ability to get up around 95. The other thing that was really nice to see is that he seemed to have his confidence back on the mound, during his May slump he didn't have the same focus and confidence in his pitches.

You can see that there was nice speration in the speed of his pitches which really kept the Astros hitters off balance and the fast ball didn't once drop below 90 mph a rare occurance this season.
The table below gives an overview of his game. The one pitch that wasn't working all that well for him was the big curveball. It seemed that every time it was thrown it was hit or missed for a ball especially early in the game. Luckily Tim had his other pitches working and even with a shaky defense (3 errors) behind him was able to shut down the Astros lineup.

Pitch Statistics
Pitch Type	Avg Speed	Max Speed	Avg H-Break	Avg V-Break	Strikes/%	Swinging Strikes / %	Linear Weights	Count
FF (FourSeam Fastball)	92.50	94.9	-0.68	8.61	34/56.67%	3 / 5.00%	-0.1954	60
CH (Changeup)	85.15	86.3	-3.61	2.31	8/80.00%	5 / 50.00%	-0.7655	10
SL (Slider)	87.30	93.3	2.57	2.90	13/72.22%	1 / 5.56%	-0.5410	18
CU (Curveball)	80.24	84.9	5.12	-7.41	14/73.68%	0 / 0.00%	0.2536	19
FT (TwoSeam Fastball)	92.74	94	-5.82	7.40	9/75.00%	3 / 25.00%	-1.0086	12
Pitch Type linear weight correspond to how many runs were likely to score on a that pitch based on average run expectancy when each pitch was thrown and what happened as a result. Negative scores indicate more effective pitches.

Tim put up a strong line of 8 innings, 7 hits, 1 run (unearned), 2 walks and 7 strike outs. This works out to a game score of 71 which is good enough for the third best outing of the season by this measure. It's nice to have Cy Young caliber Tim back on the hill, hopefully the mechanics are all back in sync and he can go on a dominate run like he has in seasons past.

The Evolution of The Freak

Over at Fangraphs Dave Cameron has written a nice piece on the growth of Tim Lincecum as a pitcher. I have to say that I agree with most of what he has written. When Tim first came up he was a flame thrower with a plus curveball.

He has evolved into a near unhittable force with 4 pitches that he can and will throw in any situation. The first big change was the development of the changeup. This put him into another catagory, this off season he came back with a slider and a began to work back in the curve which was one of his bread and butter pitches early in his career. The guy has become a complete pitcher, he has lowered his walk rate while maintaining a high strike out rate. His velocity has fallen some since he made his first appearence lighting up the radar gun but he has only gotten more effective.

Here is a nice little piece from the fangraphs post:

The first pitch Tim Lincecum ever threw in the major leagues was reported to be 99 MPH on the Giants stadium gun (we don’t have Pitch F/x data for that performance, unfortunately). He then proceeded to hit 100 three times in his first big league inning, showing the velocity that had gotten him drafted in the first round, even as scouts were concerned with his command, delivery, and workload. In that first year, Lincecum’s fastball averaged 94.2 MPH, the seventh hardest fastball in the game, and he threw it 67 percent of the time.

You don’t need a best fit line to see the trend in that image. His velocity has been steadily falling since he arrived in the big leagues, and through his first three starts this year, his fastball is averaging just 91.7 MPH. He has thrown 312 pitches this year, and only three of them have topped 95. He now throws about as hard as Matt Harrison and Clayton Richard. But, this is the crazy thing – it hasn’t mattered at all.

The guy might be a little less freakesh then when he first came up, but he is even more the face of the franchise.