Lincecum's Ups and Downs

Tim Lincecum of the San Francisco Giants pitched a strange game on Saturday night, Sept 3, 2011.  Facing the division rival Arizona Diamondbacks with a division race on the line, Tim struck out seven batters in five innings.  A high strikeout rate like that usually leads to few hits, as strikeouts limit the number of balls in play that can go for hits.  The Diamondbacks, however, managed hits on nine of 16 balls in play against Tim.  How did Lincecum manage to pitch both poorly and well in the same game?

Tha answer lies in location.  Tim usually gets his strikeouts on pitches that batters chase low out of the strike zone:

Tim Lincecum, pitch frequency on strikeouts, 2011.Saturday night, Tim's strikeouts were up:

Tim Lincecum, pitch frequency on strikeouts, 2011-09-03.This was his problem throughout the night.  His pitches were up in the hittable part of the strike zone:

 Tim Lincecum, pitch frequency, 2011-09-03.

Compare that to his frequency for the year.

Tim Lincecum, pitch frequency, 2011.Tim moves a batter's eyes up and down in the zone.  On Saturday, he mostly kept his pitches in a single plane.  It's a credit to his ability that even when he didn't have his best stuff, Lincecum was able to strike out seven.  That wasn't enough to overcome the phat pitches he left in the strike zone, however.

Under the Weather, Lincecum Blanks Phillies

Tim Lincecum was scratched from scheduled starts against Philadelphia on Tuesday and Wednesday while battling a stomach illness. On Thursday, he returned to the mound and had Phillies hitters feeling nauseous. Lincecum went six scoreless innings, striking out six batters and walking four while surrendering three hits. Lincecum's fastball didn't have its typical zip, but he compensated by going to the soft stuff more often.

Phillies manager Charlie Manuel summed up Lincecum's stuff, as well as his frustration with his offense:

"Tonight I saw 90 [mph] fastball, 92 at the best," Manuel said. "I saw a good changeup. I saw a breaking ball. I saw a cutter. Good pitching, but at the same time we can beat that."

Perhaps still feeling the effects of that stomach bug, Lincecum averaged 91.1 MPH with his fastball on Thursday, compared to his 92.4 MPH overall average this season. He went to that lower-octane heater less often than usual: Lincecum threw 42 fastballs in 101 pitches (41.6 percent), compared to his 55.4 percent average in 2011. Phillies hitters missed just one of the 17 fastballs that they swung at.

With his fastball not fooling hitters and his breaking stuff missing the mark (a little more than half were thrown for strikes), Lincecum called on his changeup often. He threw 33 on Thursday, with excellent results. Philly missed 10 of the 20 changeups swung at, flailing at the pitch as it tumbled out of the strike zone:

Location of Phillies hitters' swinging strikes against Lincecum's changeup Lincecum got four of his Ks with his changeup, all of them swinging.  Ryan Howard, Domonic Brown, Carlos Ruiz and Chase Utley all fell victim to the change.

As his four walks and 11 first-pitch strikes in 25 batters faced suggest, Lincecum wasn't at his best on Thursday. But he adapted his approach, realizing that while his fastball wasn't as nasty as usual, he had a killer changeup that could shut down Phillies hitters.

Baseball-All-Starlytics: Tim Lincecum vs. Anibal Sanchez

Joe Capozzi in an entry to his  Fish Tank blog on the PalmBeachPost.com site had an interesting piece on Sunday where he talks about how Marlins manager Jack McKeon is frustrated both that pitcher Anibal Sanchez is not going to the All Star game and that Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum is going.

His bottom line comment was this: 

“He’s on his team. And he’s a good pitcher, don’t get me wrong. But do we reward for what you’re doing now or do we reward for what you’ve done in the past? …

“I think the guys, there are lot of guys who will never make the All Star game again who are worthy of being on that team and will never get another chance.

“If he’s not having an all star year, are we voting for all stars for this year? In other words you go out and you bust your tail and have a good year this year, you can’t make it because some guy is hitting 240 that happened to make it the last couple of years. Reward the guys for this year.”

McKeon of course is right. There s always a tendency on the part of voters and selectors to opt for the old "star"with the reputation versus the new "star" with the numbers, but that is a sports tradition. However, that doesn't prevent us from comparing the numbers.

Who is the All-Star: Tim Lincecum or Anibal Sanchez?

Here is Lincecum this season:

Batters are hitting .230 against Lincecum and slugging .339Here is Sanchez this season:
Batters are hitting .238 against Sanchez and slugging .376

The numbers between the two are strikingly close:

• Lincecum has a 3.14 ERA; Sanchez has a 3.30.
• Lincecum has a 1.193 WHIP; Sanchez an identical 1.193.
• Lincecum has surrendered seven homers; Sanchez has given up nine.
• Lincecum has struck out 126 (26% batters faced); Sanchez 11 (24.7%).
• Lincecum has walked 41 (8.5%); Sanchez 33 (7.3%).

Here's the reality:

Yes, on paper, these two are remarkably similar, so if one makes the All-Star squad , the other should as well. But, who has the casual fan heard of: Tim Lincecum or Anibal Sanchez? Who will that fan tune in Fox to see?

After all is said and done, I'm sure that Sanchez and McKeon know the answers to that question, so now Sanchez just needs to wait to see which NL pitcher bails on the game and he is added to the squad.