A New Lincecum? Probably Not.
Sometimes it is hard to remember that Tim Lincecum used to be one of baseball’s best pitchers. The back-to-back Cy Young Award winner in 2008 and 2009 enjoyed two more excellent seasons immediately after with Cy Young finishes in both, but fell off a cliff at age-28 and has remained in the canyon with Wile E. Coyote ever since with a 4.76 ERA in 539.3 innings over the last three seasons.
The early returns have been Vintage Lincecum from a results standpoint (2.00 ERA, 1.19 WHIP), but is there change we can believe in or is this just a solid run for him? After all even in the midst of a 4.74 ERA in 155.7 innings last year, he still had a random six-start run of 1.49 ERA in the early-summer. Of course it did feature his no-hitter and another outing against the offensively-challenged Padres (15.3 IP of 3-hit, 1-run ball in those two outings alone).
Are we seeing something different or is this something that would barely hit our radar if it came in mid-June as his run did last year? Let’s see what we’re dealing with here.