Giants' Lincecum refines his delivery
Would a rolling skateboard increase his velocity? Tim Lincecum's pitching motion went through a leap of evolution this week. The Giants' ace got the win July 30 over the visiting Dodgers with his usual every-inch-of-his-body sideways lightning strike.
Would a rolling skateboard increase his velocity?
Tim Lincecum's pitching motion went through a leap of evolution this week.
The Giants' ace got the win July 30 over the visiting Dodgers with his usual every-inch-of-his-body sideways lightning strike.
But by Thursday - even though High&Inside believes it recognized him that day skateboarding at City Hall - he was reportedly in Atlanta debuting a new move as he took a 3-2 loss.
He's now delivering the ball from higher up, over his head. He didn't appear to need any makeover up to this point, but he's already given up 12 homers, equaling his career season high.
Also on the pitching front, San Francisco has activated righthander Todd Wellemeyer from the 15-day DL and designated righthander Denny Bautista for assignment.
Other distinctive hurlers
Even before Lincecum's fresh tack, the National League was a fertile hunting ground for signature windups.
There's the Nats' Stephen Strasburg with what some see as an inverted-W upper-body profile before the delivery, raising concerns about long-term vulnerability to injury.
And lanky Ubaldo Jimenez of the Rockies reaches so far back before the start of his delivery that he looks like a six-gun shooter going behind his backside to grab a low-slung gun from the opposite holster.
The effectiveness of each one of them shows there really are a lot of very different ways to skin the same cat.
Humidity may wilt him; the hair was already wilted
Lincecum is from the Pacific Northwest and has a rep for surrendering more homers in the heat, which he admits does not suit him. Thursday in Atlanta, he had a decent outing over 61/3 innings, giving up only six hits, but two of them, alas, were homers that made the difference.
"I'm getting used to it," Lincecum told the San Francisco Chronicle, speaking of the climate. "You can look for various reasons, that maybe the hot weather made me leave the pitches up and give up two home runs. I don't know. I mean, without those two pitches, I think I'm doing all right.
"I think it affected me differently my first couple of years more than it does now. I feel I'm preparing a little better for it."
Final weird Lincecum factoid
Think about this.
Lincecum looks very slight on the mound, so it seems possible he has inflated his listed weight of 170 pounds.
On the other side of the ledger, we all know how common it is for athletes who have struggled with their weight to understate the figure, so there's a good chance the Yankees' CC Sabathia is more than 290.
So depending on how accurate each figure is, it's conceivable that Sabathia could be approaching twice Lincecum's actual weight.
Maybe he could carry around a spare Lincecum for those special contingencies.
A tragedy in Los Angeles
There was some very sad news from Dodger Stadium on Thursday. A fan died after collapsing on the field during batting practice.
Don Hawkins, who was participating in Mormon Community Night, was standing near the third-base coach's box when he fell ill. He was one of about 4,000 Mormons on hand for the annual event.
Hawkins was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital after paramedics performed CPR but was pronounced dead. There was no word Friday on the cause of death.
