San Fran's Starters Avoid Fat Part of Plate During Shutout Streak

The San Francisco Giants have leaped into first place in the NL West thanks to four straight shutouts, becoming the first club to blank the competition four or more consecutive times since the 1995 Baltimore Orioles. Barry Zito, Ryan Vogelsong and Tim Lincecum dominated the Dodgers for a series sweep, and Madison Bumgarner was an up-the-middle roller from Ryan Hanigan away from a no-hitter versus the Reds last night.

While Zito, Vogelsong, Lincecum and Bumgarner all put up zeroes, their pitch location during their respective shutouts varied. One thing they all had in common, though, was avoiding the fat part of the plate.

Barry Zito

Zito's pitch location vs. Dodgers on 6/25/12

Zito stuck to his glove side versus the Dodgers, staying away from lefty batters (nearly 60 percent of his pitches to lefties were thrown outside) and pounding righties inside. Zito threw just five of his 109 pitches to both the horizontal and vertical middle of the plate.

Ryan Vogelsong

Vogelsong's pitch location vs. Dodgers on 6/26/12

While Zito pitched to his glove side, Vogelsong located to his arm side and induced a bunch of ground balls (15, compared to eight fly balls). Vogelsong also left just five of his 98 pitches over the horizontal and vertical middle of the plate. 

Tim Lincecum

Lincecum's pitch location vs. Dodgers on 6/27/12

Lincecum turned in arguably his best start of the season by keeping the ball down: 54 percent of his pitches were at hitters' knees, compared to 45 percent overall in 2012. Only nine of Timmy's 115 pitches were left middle-middle.

Madison Bumgarner

Bumgarner's pitch location vs. Reds on 6/28/12

Good luck finding a pattern in Bumgarner's pitch location. Batters must have felt like they got walloped with a beer-and-shaving-cream pie as the big lefty peppered all four quadrants of the plate. Bumgarner threw a mere four of his 107 pitches to the middle-middle-portion of the plate.

Bad things happen when pitchers leave the ball down the heart of the plate: hitters are slugging a collective .579 on pitches thrown to both the horizontal and vertical middle of the dish this season. Basically, batters turn into this year's version of Robinson Cano when they get a cookie. But Zito, Vogelsong, Lincecum and Bumgarner only threw a combined 5.4 percent of their pitches to the fat part of the plate during the shutout streak. The average for starting pitchers is about 7.5 percent. It pays to be precise.

Lincecum vs. Kemp

In last night's Giants-Dodgers game, Tim Lincecum struck out Matt Kemp in three consecutive plate appearances. Here's the pitch frequency for the 17 pitches Lincecum threw Kemp:

As you can see, Lincecum tried to keep the ball down in the zone. Kemp is only a .219 hitter on low balls since the start of the 2010 season, as opposed to .340 on pitches middle and up.

All three strike outs were swinging, the first on a slider down, and the next two on changeups also down in the zone.

Matt Kemp ISO heat map data from 2010-2012 (Click image to enlarge)All three pitches would more than likely have been called balls for being too low. From Kemp's ISO heat map, we see that he's fairly dangerous on nearly any pitch in the strike zone, and even up out of the strike zone.  However, low pitches give him trouble; Lincecum concentrated his efforts here and was able to successfully neutralize the National League leader in batting average, slugging percentage, OPS+, wRC+, and WAR.

Lincecum Looking For More Strikes With Fastball

While he remains an utterly dominant starter, Tim Lincecum's control has slipped in recent years. The two-time Cy Young Award winner walked 7.5% of the batters he faced in 2009, 8.5% in 2010 and 9.6% this past year. To reverse that trend, The Freak is looking for more strikes with his fastball:

"I want to throw more strike ones," Lincecum said. "I want to get back to using my fastball to control the strike zone."

Lincecum said he will only throw fastballs and change-ups during his sessions "until I get my arm speed up to where it needs to be."

Over the past three years, Lincecum has thrown fewer fastballs in the strike zone. As a result, his strike percentage with the pitch has dropped to a few ticks below the big league average for starting pitchers:

Year	Pct. In Strike Zone	Strike Pct.
2009	53.5	64.4
2010	51.6	63.8
2011	49.4	62.7
2009-11 Avg. for SP	51.5	64.3

The changes are even more dramatic to start off the at-bat. His first-pitch strike rate with the fastball has slumped from 59% in 2009 down to 53% in 2011, well below the 61% average for starters. The right-hander has gradually missed more to the arm side with his heater. Take a look at the frequency of Lincecum's fastball location in 2009, 2010 and 2011:

Frequency of Lincecum's fastball location, 2009

Frequency of Lincecum's fastball location, 2010

Frequency of Lincecum's fastball location, 2011

Lincecum's strike rate on fastballs thrown to the arm-side (the outer third to left-handed hitters, and inside to righties)  has dropped from 60% in 2009 to 57% in 2010 and 56% in 2011. The average for righty starting pitchers is about 62%.

The 27-year-old's small stature, heavy workload and three-year increase in Fielding Independent Pitching (2.34 in 2009, 3.15 in 2010 and 3.17 in 2011) has some worried as Lincecum inches closer to free agency after the 2013 season. But, despite his issues with fastball control, it's important to remember that Lincecum's "decline" has taken him from best pitcher in baseball to merely among the game's greatest (his 2011 FIP was still in the top 20 among qualified starters). In other words, don't freak about The Freak.