Lincecum’s Fastball By Inning

Published by on April 6, 2010 | 5 Responses

A quick graph. I’m trying something new — let me know if it’s helpful or not.

What you’re looking at is Tim Lincecum’s fastball velocity by inning. The game data is from his first start — and victory — of the year against the Houston Astros.

Each red dashed-line indicates the end of an inning. So, you’ve got 7 dashed-lines indicating 7 different innings. At the start of the game, Lincecum was working 93-94, even touching 95 mph with his heat. His fastball velocity dipped between the 5th and 7th innings to 91-92 mph. He threw a couple of sub-90 mph fastballs in the 5th.

Note: Tim’s fastest heater on the night was clocked at 95.2 mph in the 2nd inning. His slowest fastball was 89.3 mph in the 5th.

There was some talk in the spring about Tim’s velocity, but it looked pretty good for most of the night. I really can’t see anything to complain about. With the development of his changeup, he’s not going to need to pump 95+ mph fastballs for 7 innings at time. Just enough to keep hitters honest.

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Carl Hubbell
Carl Hubbell

That last comment about his third pitch is supposed to be a curveball not a fastball. His fastball was obviously near an 80 when he came up, and is probably still in the 70 range now due to its run. Mea Culpa.

hitnrun
hitnrun

Great info Chris. Nice to see that you don't HAVE to throw 95mph to succeed in the bigs, however Lincecum has so many other weapons to get the batter out, plus it looks like (in your graph) that he is learning to spot his fastball and to take something off of it for effectiveness. He really is something special.

Carl Hubbell
Carl Hubbell

The one problem with trying to clock Tim's fastballs is that he does throw both a two and four seam version. While he predominantly relies upon the two seam variety, the fact that this pitch with its greater motion generally has slightly diminished velocity makes charting velocities less informative. Thank you for the information, as it's a good general guide, but I'm reserving judgement on his velocity. Now by no means do I believe that one must pitch 95 to be a successful pitcher. Right up there with Carl Hubbell, the crafty screwball pitcher, I greatly appreciate the work of Mike Mussina, a control specialist with his nasty knuckle-curve. I also see what appears to be better balance in Timmy's motion, which would suggest that the velocity might be intentional, as he is attempting to get better control over his pitches. I'd also be happy if he kept this theme up as his scapular loading has always scared me a little with injury risk, and slowing the motion ever so slightly should reduce the stress on his shoulder. But all in all, Timmy looked good because his control was solid, his change was working, and he has rightfully integrated his plus fastball (when he came up it was a solid 60, now I'd put it at a 50, but for a third pitch that's really solid) back into his repertoire.

hairball
hairball

Also, in the SweetSpot Network Roster dropdown menu above, for some reason it just says "San Francisco", minus the word "Giants". It's the only one like that.

hairball
hairball

I noticed that he had pretty sweet velocity in that game, and was happy about it. It's weird to think that Tim picked up the change AFTER becoming a Giant. Remember when all we could talk about were the heater and the curve? Without the change, he'd probably still be in the top 5% of pitchers in the majors. With it, it's just unfair.