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2 days ago, Tim Lincecum pitched a complete game shutout against the Cardinals.  I took a detailed look at his start, and he was absolutely dominant.  Well last night, Adam Wainwright got revenge.  He didn't get a win as the Cards offense was anemic again (although Rasmus hit a walkoff homer, so I'm not complaining), but his final line against the Giants was a thing of beauty: 9 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 0 HR, 12 K.  He also threw 122 pitches and 82 strikes, leading to a whopping 67% K rate. 

In similar fashion to my post about Lincecum, I'm gonna look at how Waino was able to be so good last night.  I know, I know, I'm being repetitive, but I am really liking this Pitchfx stuff.  I'll try to mix it up soon, and off course if anyone has any requests for articles about Pitchfx or whatever, you can email me at nicks0817@aim.com.  For now though, you can enjoy this summary of Wainwright's great start.

More gifs, graphs and words after the jump. 

First off, to get a better idea of Waino's stuff, I present to you his flight paths from today's start:

You can click on it for a larger image.

As you can see, Waino has a much different looking flight path than Lincecum did.  He's a big boy, at least 6-7, and he comes straight over the top.  That leads to a lot of downward movement on all of his pitches. 

His fastball generally sits in the low 90's with a little bit of 2 seam movement.  Because he throws it from such an extreme angle, it has a lot of natural sink to it.  You'd think that it would be a positive pitch, but according to Fangraphs, it has cost him -16.8 runs when he has thrown it this year.  However, in the previous few seasons, his fastball has been around average despite similar movement and velocity, so this years low rating seems fluky.  He throws his fastball about 55% of the time.  

His offspeed pitches are very good.  He'll throw his curveball in the low 70's, with over 9 inches of vertical break.  In addition to that, it has about 7 inches of horizontal break, making it a huge breaking pitch.  Most people will remember his curveball against Beltran to end the NCLS in 2006.  For those who don't, here it is in gif form:

... took it like a champ.  So far this year, his curve has been worth 10.4 runs, and that doesn't even include his start last night (Fangraphs hasn't updated their pitch value section yet).  He might just have the best pure curve in the majors.  You'll also notice from the flight paths, that unlike Lincecums curve, Wainwright's has as a pretty big "hump" to it.  That makes it less of a power pitch, but it also allows it to have more movement.  He'll throw it about 20% of the time.  

He also possesses a slider/cutter.  It has almost as much horizontal movementas his curve, but is a flatter and faster pitch.  So far, it has been worth +8.5 runs so far this year, and he'll throw it about as often as the curve. 

Then he has a changeup, which he really doesn't use that often.  This year, he's thrown it just over 7% of the time.  Despite that, it seems to be a very good pitch.  It has almost identical movement to his fastball, but is nearly 10 MPH slower.  When he's throw in this year, it's been a plus pitch to the tune of 1.8 runs.  

Okay, so now that you have a good idea of what Waino throws, let's look at how he was able to be so good last night.  Here is his strikezone plot by pitch type:

Unlike Lincecum, Waino didn't go right after the hitters.  A large percentage of his pitches were on the borders of the strike zone and just off the plate.  Let's see what hitters actually did with those pitches: 

The first thing you'll notice is that he had a lot of swinging strikes.  Waino had NINETEEN!!!!!!!! in this game, which is one of the top marks in any game by any pitcher this year.  As you can see, a lot of those swings in misses were on pitches out of the zone.  In addition, there were 3 batted ball outs that were on pitches out of the zone.  A lot of that is due to Waino's excellent movement, but a lot is probably due to the Giants awful collective plate discipline.  For the year, Giants hitters are dead last in the majors with a 31.7 O-Swing.  There even worse than the Cardinals!

Another observation is that the Giants didn't make solid contact on hittable pitches.  You can see that there are quite a few yellow dots, which represent foul balls, and red x's, which represent batted ball outs, in the heart of the strike zone.  Either Waino was able to fool them badly, or they just didn't hit there pitches.  Given the amount of swings out of the strike zone, and having the benefit of actually watching the game, I would say it was the former.  

Now, as a new feature in these Pitchfx profiles, I'll highlight my favorite count of the game using Gameday.  Today, it is Waino v. Sandoval in the 8th inning.  Nobody out, bases loaded and the Cards up by one.  Pablo Sandoval, who before the game had struck out in just 15.7% of his plate appearance, was at the plate.  Here is what happened:

This wasn't the most elegantly pitched batter of the night, but given the situation at the time it was brilliant.  Also, he had fallen behind 2 and 0, looking like he was gonna have a really bad inning.  Then he lock in was able to make a couple of great pitches to get out Sandoval.  He then allowed a sac fly to Bengie, tying up the game, before striking out Scheirholtz.  However, striking out Sandoval was clearly the turning point of that inning.  Before, the Cardinals had just a 37.5% chance of winning the game; after, they had over a 50% chance of winning.  Sandoval had a really bad game: in addition to that key strikeout, he also failed to catch the popup that allowed Rasmus to stay alive and hit the homer.

Anyway, this was an amazing start for Wainwright; his FIP for the game was 1.53.  The most positive sign was that he kept the ball in the park, something he had been struggling with the past few starts.  Before this start, Wainwright was pitching well, but clearly not at the level that Cards fan had been hoping for.  His FIP was 4.01, which is over .20 points higher than it was last year.  Hopefully, this start represents improvement back to the pitcher that most people feel he could be.