I made the argument that Tim Lincecum is better than ever in my half of the weekly California Hatin' column for Davis Sports Deli.

The excerpt:

If all that changed between 2010 and 2011 was that Lincecum regained that 3-5 mph on his fastball he would be back in the conversation for best in the NL but then on top of everything that he has already he adds another out pitch with a hard slider.

Lincecum has always had a slider but it wasn’t something that he threw all that often (5% of the time). Then Matt Cain gave him a tip on a better grip for slider that allowed him to throw it a little harder and the rest is history. The new grip allows him to feature 4 different speeds on his pitches, the fastball at 91-95, the slider at 85-88, the change at 80-83 and the curve at 75-78.

The results speak for themselves; Lincecum has upped his strikeout rate to nearly 11 while lowering his walk rate and keeping hitters off balance with a batting average against below .200.

Read the whole thing here.

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