Earlier this spring, it was reported that the San Francisco Giants‘ two-time NL Cy Young award-winner Tim Lincecum would shelve his slider in order to save wear-and-tear on his ligaments.
Seems smart, right? Anything to prolong a potential Hall-of-Fame career.
The reasons for this decision were simple. Questions are lingering on whether the 27-year-old righty is concealing an injury this spring, as his velocity has been down—his fastball was sitting just a tick under 90 mph in yesterday’s 5-4 Opening Day loss to the Diamondbacks.
Lincecum (0-1) lasted just 5.1 innings, while giving up five earned runs, despite striking out seven and walking just one. And the ace stuck to the plan too: He threw exactly zero sliders.
Not to sound the alarm just yet, everyone has rough outings. His strikeout-to-walk ratio was actually quite impressive yesterday, and there’s no real way to tell if he’s missing his slider after a single start.
At this point, his velocity is more of a concern than the slider, anyway.
Last week, in a story concerning the aforementioned breaking ball, Andrew Baggarly addressed the issue:
It’s true, Lincecum hasn’t thrown hard this spring. But that is not atypical. He often starts out slow before zipping 94 mph on the gun when the season begins. More important, he says, is location of his two-seamer so he can get ahead of hitters and try for more efficient, contact outs.
So, as the season progresses, hopefully we’ll see the mph slowly rise over the next month or so. If not, he may have to bite the bullet and reintroduce the slider to his repertoire. But right now, the radar gun is definitely something to keep an eye on.
Alex Pavlovic noted following yesterday’s game:
I don’t want to sound any alarms, but Lincecum’s average fastball was 89.7 mph according to MLB.com…Again, don’t want to sound any alarms, because there’s been no indication from the Giants that there’s a problem.
So, not to throw a cliche in your faces here, but it seems to fit in this case: Where’s there’s smoke, there’s fire. Early indications aren’t good for Lincecum so far, and I hope I’m wrong, but don’t be surprised to see a prolonged disabled-list stint from him in at some point in 2012.
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