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Yo, did you see me strikeout Pujols? No the ball came in too fast.

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Since the Cardinals have acquired DeRosa, they are 0-2 and have scored exactly 2 runs.  Kyle B. 1, Viva 0 (then again, Chris Perez almost killed a guy in his debut with the Indians).  Of course, having to face Tim Lincecum in 50% of those games certainly limits your ability to score many runs.

Yesterday, the aforementioned pitcher absolutely carved up the Cards lineup.  His final line: 9 IP, 2 H, 0 BB, 8 K, 95 pitches, 60 strikes.  That brought his season FIP to a Pedro-esque 2.00.  He has already been worth 4.8 WAR, which is worth roughly 21.5 million on the free agent market... in a half a season.  So far in his major league career, he has been worth 15.5 WAR in a little more than two seasons.  He throws 195 MPH, his curveball has 50 inches of break, and he once struck out Matt Weiters on 2 pitches.  

I could spend all day writing about how good Lincecum is, but I did want to take a look at his start against the Cards yesterday.  That of course means lots of graphs after the jump.

First of, flight paths:

You can view a larger image here.

You can really see the power stuff that Lincecum has.  His curveball has almost no horizontal movement, however, it starts off on the same plane as his fastball and then drops like a rock.  Ditto with his changeup, which is almost 10 miles per hour slower than his fastball.  Fangraphs has his change worth 15.1 runs so far this year, making it the single best pitch in baseball!!!  Also, did I mention he threw in the mid 90's, touching as high as 97?  He'll throw his fastball about 60% of the time, and his change and curve about 20% of the time.

Here is his strikezone plot against the Cards, organized by pitch type:

Here is a larger image.

Of course, when you have stuff like he does, you don't neccesarily have to nibble.  As you can see, he came right at the Cards hitters, throwing a lot of fastballs and changeups in the heart of the strikezone.  He threw a lot of curves low in the strikezone, but I remember that he generated a lot of swings and misses on those (*cough* *cough* Skip Schumaker).  So here is a strikezone plot based on the actual outcomes of each pitch:

Once again, click here for a larger view.

So, I was right.  7 of his 13 swinging strikes (BTW, 13 is a collosal number for one start) were on pitches below the strike zone.  If you compare this graph to the one above it, you can see that most of them were on curves or changeups. 

This chart also represents the complete ineptitude of the Cardinals hitters over the past couple of months.  Even  considering that Lincecum is an amazing starter, they clearly should not have taken so many pitches down the middel, while also swinging at so much junk out of the zone. 

Now, akin to self flaggelation, I present to you his strikeout against Pujols in the first inning:

Even Pujols displayed poor plate discipline in that at bat.  He took a elevated fastball down the middle (although it was 97) and eventually whiffed on a curveball out of the strike zone. 

On a side note, this was the first time that Pujols has ever stricken out in a big league game.  In fact, after he swung and missed at that last nasty curve, Pujols jogged around the bases because that's what he was used to doing at the end of each at bat.  Pujols actually had a pretty good game though.  He lined out in the 4th and doubled in the 7th.

Overall, this was just another great start for Lincecum.  His WPA was .285, which was only the 6th best mark he has put up in a single start this year.  This kid is freaking good.  If he can stay injury free for the most part of his career (I believe his mechanics are view positively by Kyle, Trip and others), he has the ability to do great things.