Tim Lincecum has completed his second start with the Triple-A Salt Lake Bees. While it had been previously reported that he was on his way up to the majors, it now looks as though the two-time Cy Young Award winner will have one more Minor League start.
Lincecum told us he will have one more outing with the Bees and "see how he's feeling."
— Jessica Kleinschmidt (@KleinschmidtJD) June 7, 2016
Given that he’s only made two starts and thrown only 10 innings, it’s a little hard to go too in depth with his numbers. But for now, it’s all we have. So what has he done?
On the negative end, he’s walked five hitters and allowed five earned runs. Both of those numbers are too high. A Major League pitcher can’t walk 4.5 hitters per nine innings if he has any plans on having an ERA below 4.00. Big league hitters are just too good to give them that many chances with men on base, especially when you put them on for free.
On the positive end, it doesn’t look like Lincecum is getting hit hard. In those 10 innings, he’s allowed a very modest six hits and none of those were home runs. Additionally, he struck out 11 hitters, which works out to a better than reasonable 9.9 strikeouts per nine innings. Lincecum hasn’t had an average that high since his second Cy Young Award-winning season of 2009.
How much, if any, of that will translate to the Majors remains to be seen. For now, it looks like Lincecum is definitely a project, but one that’s showing good signs.