What is Wrong With Lincecum

Tim Lincecum has had 3 rocky starts this season. This is not the Lincecum that won 2 Cy Young awards and led the league in strikeouts in 3 out of 5 seasons with The Giants.

In his 3 starts this season Lincecum has pitched 13 2/3 innings and given up 16 runs on 22 hits and 4 walks. Lincecum's velocity on his fastball has drooped to 90.3 in 2012 and that is bad because his change up velocity remains the same. This makes a smaller gap between the velocity of his fastball and change up, therefore making his change up more hitable. This is also very bad because his change up is his out-pitch.

Lincecum's pitch percentage

The percentage of fastballs thrown has also decreased dramatically. In 2010 Lincecum threw his fastball only 37.9% of the time and his ERA was a career high 3.43. This season Lincecum is throwing his fastball 36.7% of the time and his ERA is 10.54.

Another thing that may be causing Lincecum's troubles may be the person who calls the pitches. In 2010 Lincecum had his worst season to date and he had a new catcher in Buster Posey. In 2010 Popsey caught 75 games and in 2011 Lincecum had a bounce back season and posted a 2.74 ERA. Also in 2011 Posey was injured and only caught 41 games. In 2010 Posey caught about half of Lincecum's games and in 2011 Posey only caught about a forth of his games. This may be a problem along with the velocity drop.

Lincecum's unorthodox delivery 

Lincecum had his best 2 seasons when Bengie Molina was the starting catcher and when he was traded to the Rangers in 2010 his stats began to decline. Lincecum has to continue to work to get his velocity back. In the first few starts of the season the velocity of pitchers isn't where it will be mid season, but this is actually something to be concerned about. I think Lincecum will have a bounce back start in the series against The Mets this weekend.