A lot of our posts are just depressing right now. It’s not our fault–the Mariners passed the Giants in runs scored yesterday, making San Francisco the lowest scoring team in baseball! Thank goodness Chris has been hitting us with great prospect stuff before she goes on her hiatus, the latest being her prospect mailbag from today.
Anyway, here’s some stuff on Tim Lincecum to get you ready for tonight’s game versus the Padres and Tim Stauffer (and to further break up the “the offense sucks” posts):
- Tim Lincecum has thrown 171 innings so far in 2011. If you sort by pitchers with at least 150 innings, his 2.53 ERA is behind only Clayton Kershaw (2.51).
- He’s sixth in the NL with 4.4 WAR (Wins Above Replacement). What’s more amazing than that, though, is that six of the top seven pitchers in the Senior Circuit by pitching WAR are either Phillies (Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, and Cole Hamels) or Giants (Matt Cain, Lincecum, and Madison Bumgarner).
- Lincecum’s 9.58 strikeouts per nine innings trail only Tommy Hanson (9.83) and Kershaw (9.82). Needless to say, he’s still a weird little wizard when it comes to missing bats.
- Tim’s improved velocity that we saw tick back up at the end of last year, throughout the playoffs and at the beginning of this year has continued to hold strong. He’s averaging 92.5 miles per hour on his heater, 0.1 more than he averaged in 2009 when he won his last Cy Young award.
Oh, and he’s 11-10. Thanks, Aubrey Huff and friends!
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Lincecum will make his 27th start of the season tonight versus the Friars. The Giants really, really, desperately need it to be a good one. If what he’s been doing lately is any indication, tonight could be a good night.
