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Just when you think you have all of the answers, the 2014 MLB postseason changes the questions.

In a battle between two of the game’s best aces, offense was the story as the St. Louis Cardinals jumped out to a 1-0 lead over the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Division Series following a 10-9 win in Dodger Stadium on Friday night.

Before the game, Cardinals third baseman Matt Carpenter mentioned that he felt the team had a lot to prove despite winning the National League Central.

“We never really, as a group, found our stride,” he said, per Tyler Kepner of The New York Times. “We found a way to win games and win our division, but I think this offense hasn’t played up to its potential. We all believe our best baseball is still to come.”

His words proved prophetic.

On the strength of an eight-run seventh inning, the Cardinals overcame a five-run deficit and a poor outing from Adam Wainwright to walk away with one of the more improbable victories of the playoffs so far.

St. Louis entered the top of the seventh down 6-2. Clayton Kershaw was rolling, having given up only two hits in the game—both of which were solo home runs. Historically, when the Dodgers score a lot of runs, Kershaw doesn’t give up the lead, per MLB.com’s Paul Casella:

In keeping with the general unpredictability of this postseason already, everything completely unraveled for the likely NL Cy Young Award winner.

After singles from Matt Holliday, Jhonny Peralta and Yadier Molina, the Cardinals loaded the bases with nobody out. Kershaw faced a bases loaded situation only three times during the regular season, per ESPN Stats and Info:

Matt Adams wasted little time, singling to center and scoring Holliday. Kershaw allowed a little breathing room for himself after striking out Pete Kozma. His reprieve was short-lived, however, as John Jay delivered another run-scoring single to cut Los Angeles’ lead to 6-4.

Carpenter, who homered in the top of the sixth inning, stepped to the plate. He quickly got down 0-2 to Kershaw but fouled off three pitches and watched another two land outside of the zone for balls. On the eighth pitch of the at-bat, Carpenter drove the ball to right center for a double, scoring all three baserunners and giving the Cardinals a 7-6 lead.

MLB.com’s Jenifer Langosch noted that that wasn’t the first time Carpenter had gotten to Kershaw in the playoffs:

Kershaw’s night was through after that, and his final line is something to behold. He went 6.2 innings, giving up eight earned runs on eight hits, walking and striking out 10. Nobody in the playoffs has done that before:

The Cardinals offense wasn’t done, either. After Pedro Baez walked Randal Grichuk, Holliday capped off the comeback with a three-run blast over the wall in left field, making it a 10-6 game. Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times captured the feeling inside Dodger Stadium after L.A. watched a five-run lead evaporate in the blink of an eye:

Adrian Gonzalez’s two-run home run in the bottom of the eighth breathed some life into the home crowd.  The Dodgers added another run in the bottom of the ninth and had a runner on third with two outs and Yasiel Puig at the plate. Trevor Rosenthal struck out the All-Star outfielder to end the game.

Kershaw’s cataclysmic breakdown will overshadow the fact that his opposite number pitched even worse on the night.

Wainwright never looked himself and was eventually yanked after giving up six earned runs on 11 hits over 4.1 innings. Langosch and Kepner pointed out how much of an outlier his off-kilter performance was:

Oddly enough, the Cardinals had previously won both times Wainwright allowed six runs in the postseason, per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

The Dodgers will rue a missed opportunity, while St. Louis will be ecstatic that it stole Game 1 and beat Los Angeles’ best pitcher in the process.

The Cardinals couldn’t have envisioned a better start to the night. After Carpenter struck out to begin the top of the first, Grichuk stepped to the plate. In 116 plate appearances during the regular season, he hit three home runs.

So naturally he took the best pitcher on the planet yard on an 0-2 pitch. Grichuk gave St. Louis an early 1-0 lead after his homer in the top of the first.

Only twice in the last two years has Kershaw surrendered a home run up 0-2 in the count, per ESPN Stats and Info:

It was also the second time in all of 2014 that he allowed a home run in the first inning:

Kershaw quickly regained his composure, getting Holliday to line out and retiring Peralta to end the the top half of the first.

After knocking on the door in the first and second innings, the Dodgers broke through in the bottom of the third.

Wainwright plunked Puig to begin the frame. That, in turn, set off a few tempers in both dugouts. Molina and Adrian Gonzalez had some words, and the benches cleared. All of the posturing came to nothing. Tensions eased after Wainwright and Puig talked the situation over, per Mark Saxon of ESPNLosAngeles.com:

Puig moved to second on a fielder’s choice, and Matt Kemp flied out for the second out third. For the third consecutive inning, it looked like the Dodgers would strand a runner in scoring position, but Hanley Ramirez delivered a single to right that scored Puig and tied the game.

Ramirez then stole second without a throw, which was a bit surprising given Molina was behind the plate. ESPN’s Buster Olney alluded to the idea that Molina’s defensive effectiveness has been somewhat limited since having thumb surgery earlier in the year:

That stolen base proved pivotal as Carl Crawford hit a ground-rule double down the right-field line, putting the Dodgers on top 2-1. Crawford advanced to third on a wild pitch but was left there after Juan Uribe flied out to end the inning.

Los Angeles was far from through offensively. After leading off the bottom of the fourth with a single, A.J. Ellis scored on a single from Puig, who himself later came around to score and give the Dodgers a 4-1 lead on a single by Matt Kemp.

Wainwright’s struggles continued into the fifth after he surrendered a two-run homer to Ellis, which put the Cardinals in a five-run hole, 6-1. To that point in the game, the 33-year-old catcher was 3-for-3, which Sports Illustrated‘s Jay Jaffe read as the strongest indicator as possible that Wainwright didn’t have it on Friday:

While all of this happened, Kershaw was rolling, retiring St. Louis batters in order in the second, third, fourth and fifth innings. Six of the 12 Cardinals hitters who stepped to the plate during that span went down on strikes.

Carpenter broke up the dominance in the bottom of the sixth with a solo home run to right, which was only the beginning of St. Louis’ offensive outburst.

Losing the first game of a five-game series is obviously concerning for the Dodgers, but they’re in even more trouble if they can’t count on their ace in a big game. Kershaw had problems against St. Louis in the National League Championship Series last year, and the last thing Los Angeles needs is for him to revert to that form again.

First pitch for Game 2 is scheduled for 9:37 p.m. ET Saturday. Lance Lynn is scheduled to start for the Cardinals, with Zack Greinke taking the hill for the Dodgers.

Greinke made two starts against St. Louis in 2014, going 1-1 with a 3.55 ERA. Lynn has appeared twice against Los Angeles. He was 1-1 with a 9.00 ERA.

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If San Francisco Giants pitcher Jake Peavy is out to redeem his less-than-stellar playoff career this postseason, Friday was a convincing start. 

The Giants ace allowed just two hits through five and two-thirds innings, silencing the Washington Nationals’ loud bats in their home ballpark and emerging with a 3-2 Game 1 victory to take a 1-0 series lead. 

Nationals phenom Stephen Strasburg made his much-anticipated October debut and was strong at times through his five innings, but gave up eight hits and two runs. The Giants’ bats constantly found ways to crack singles and advance runners to score in a quiet offensive game. 

Washington eventually found its collective swing with two seventh-inning solo shots from Bryce Harper and Asdrubal Cabrera, and generated pressure in the eighth inning, but it wasn’t quite enough to complete the comeback.

Take a look at the inning-by-inning score and final from Friday’s game:

Although he’s a former Cy Young winner and won the World Series as a Red Sox pitcher last year, Peavy had never won a game in the playoffs before Friday. In his first five starts from 2005-2013, he notched an 0-3 record with a 9.27 ERA.

Before making his Giants playoff debut, though, the 33-year-old conceded his mindset wouldn’t be changing from the regular season. 

“It comes down to executing better than I had in previous starts,” Peavy told MLB.com’s Paul Hagen. “Say what you want to say, other than the emotions and the atmosphere, nothing else is different about this game than a game we’d play a hundred times in the season.”

He made it apparent with his performance that he wasn’t joking around.

Peavy was untouchable in the early goings against one of the NL’s best offenses. He kept his no-hit bid alive through four innings, and was one pitch away from going six innings in a playoff game for the first time in his career.

Throughout, Peavy was the fiery, emotions-on-his-sleeves dynamo on the mound that fans have come to know quite well. David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal Constitution and Sports Illustrated‘s Peter King came off impressed:

The 26-year-old Strasburg struggled to keep the Giants hitters at bay in a similar fashion. Although he showed his blistering fastball and some of the command that makes him great, San Francisco’s hitters were smart and took what he gave them—mostly singles, but they added up.

He allowed eight hits on the game and although none were for extra bases, it didn’t much matter as San Jose Mercury News‘ Tim Kawakami noted the pressure was constantly on:

Starting pitchers are often the scapegoat for any losing team in a playoff game. But despite allowing eight hits, Strasburg’s performance didn’t come off as poor to Newsday‘s Marc Carig:

Things didn’t start out too hot for Strasburg. He allowed Travis Ishikawa to open up the third with a single, and the hitter would later score on a Joe Panik RBI single that made it 1-0. 

One inning later, it was Pablo Sandoval jumping on Strasburg—again on the first at-bat of the inning. Hunter Pence then got on base via a fielder’s choice, and Brandon Belt came up big with a one-out RBI single. Suddenly, it was 2-0 Giants.

Belt proved huge all game long, going 2-for-4 and making some big plays in the field. Grant Brisbee of McCovey Chronicles observed the Giants might be in a different position had they gotten this level of production from Belt all year:

The Nationals watched their ace get exposed thanks to early hits in innings, and turned it around to attack Peavy in the sixth. Pitching spectacularly but only holding a 2-0 lead, Peavy allowed Nate Schierholtz to open the bottom half of the sixth with a double to put him in by far his toughest position of the game.

Peavy came back to force two straight outs, then Javier Lopez and Hunter Strickland both came in to help close out the inning and leave the bases loaded for Washington. In the top half of the seventh inning, the Giants brought around another to score on a Panik triple followed by Buster Posey’s infield single that made it 3-0.

Washington had nearly pulled back into the game before seeing its deficit grow even larger. But instead of wilting, the Nationals simply took advantage of a Peavy-less Giants bullpen to get back in the game.

Harper bombed one—and I mean bombed one—into the upper decks of right field in the seventh inning off Strickland to make it 3-1 Giants. Two batters later, Cabrera hit his own solo shot to right to put the Nationals one run off the lead as their Twitter account illustrated:

ESPN Stats and Information observed just how far Harper hit his homer:

Looking to take that momentum into the next inning, the Nationals started the bottom of the eighth strong with an Anthony Rendon single. They put two runners on base with just one out for Ian Desmond and Harper, but both came up short when one swing would have taken the lead. 

In the ninth, closer Santiago Casilla came in to close the door and preserve the victory to make it a surprise 1-0 series lead for San Francisco.

Coming off an inspiring wild-card victory over Pittsburgh, the Giants couldn’t have hoped for a better start to the postseason. Despite going up against the NL’s top team and their best ace in front of a raucous crowd, they had it going from the get-go and held on late.

As for the Nationals, well, they’ll be the first to tell you that one game is just that—one game. There will be plenty of chances to even the score as the five-game series goes on, but the home loss means Washington will have to work some magic on the west coast to make it to the NLCS.

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It is often said that in Major League Baseball, playoff spots cannot be won early on in the season, but they can certainly be lost.  

For the Pittsburgh Pirates, it looked as if that may have been the case early on.  

The date was May 5, and the Pirates had lost 11-10 to the San Francisco Giants, putting them at a season-low eight games below .500 and 9.5 games out of first place.  

Now, almost six months later, the Pirates have punched their ticket back to the postseason for the second straight year.  

The Pirates defeated the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday evening by a score of 3-2. To make matters even better, the Cincinnati Reds took down the Milwaukee Brewers, who were chasing the Pirates in the standings.  

The victory marked the team’s 15th win in its last 18 games, as Pittsburgh has suddenly become the hottest team in baseball.  

Pittsburgh has received key contributions from a number of players, but no one has been more valuable to them than reigning National League Most Valuable Player Andrew McCutchen.  

After batting just .286 in the first month of play, McCutchen has remained hot throughout the season, raising his batting average to .313.  

Then there is second baseman Neil Walker, whose value to his team is immeasurable. In his sixth major league season, Walker has blasted a single-season career-high 21 home runs. He also increased his batting average from .251 in 2013 to .270 this season.  

Still, the Pirates probably wouldn’t have been where they currently are without catcher Russell Martin, whose contract is set to retire after this season.  

Statistically speaking, Martin is having the best season of his career, batting .294 with 11 home runs and 67 RBI in 107 games.  

Martin’s presence both at the plate batting and behind the plate catching has been one of the main reasons the Pirates have clinched playoff spots the last two seasons.  

When star third baseman Pedro Alvarez was hampered by injuries all season long, it looked as if the Pirates would have a tough time scoring runs. After all, Alvarez was coming off a 2013 season in which he blasted 36 home runs and drove in 100 runs.  

Even though Alvarez has driven in just 56 runs in 2014, the Pirates are still ranked third among all teams in the NL in runs scored.

Another major question mark about the 2014 Pirates at the beginning of the season was their pitching rotation.  

After losing starting pitcher A.J. Burnett to the Philadelphia Phillies in free agency prior to the start of the 2014 season, the Pirates had a hole to fill in the middle of their rotation.  

Enter Edinson Volquez.  

Who would have ever thought Volquez could do what he did all season long for the Pirates? After going 9-12 with a 5.71 ERA in 2013, Volquez has bounced back drastically, going 12-7 with a 3.15 ERA in 30 starts for the Pirates in 2014. 

Even Francisco Liriano, who was undoubtedly the ace of Pittsburgh’s staff in 2013, has bounced back after a slow start to 2014.  

After starting the season 1-7 with a 4.72 ERA, Liriano has returned to form over the last few months, bringing his season totals to a record of 7-10 and an ERA of 3.32.  

Liriano has allowed just three earned runs combined in his last six starts, as he has proven that he is ready to pitch in the NL Wild Card Game if manager Clint Hurdle elects to go with him.  

At the All-Star break, the Pirates were just three games over .500. After the break, the Pirates have gone 37-25. They are even currently knocking on the door in the NL Central Division race, trailing the St. Louis Cardinals by just 1.5 games.  

The Pirates couldn’t have picked a better time to get hot. It will be interesting to see if they can carry this momentum into October.  

If so, the Pirates will have a legitimate shot at making it back to the Fall Classic for the first time since 1979.

Led by Martin and McCutchen, these Pirates are fighters, and they will not go down without swinging. So buckle up and get ready for “Buctober,” as the Pirates are set to make another run in 2014.   

Statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and MLB.com.

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The 2014 Major League Baseball postseason is approaching quickly, and the best teams continue to jockey for playoff positioning, if not fight for a postseason berth.

Follow along while we update the playoff picture and provide key notes and information from around the league.

The following teams have already clinched a 2014 playoff berth: Los Angeles Angels, Washington Nationals, Baltimore Orioles

Teams in bold currently occupy a playoff spot

“x” indicates clinched playoff berth

“y” indicates clinched division title

American League

East

Central

West

Wild Card

National League

East

Central

West

Wild Card

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The mood hit a fever pitch Saturday at the 2014 Little League World Series, as elimination games took center stage.

With everything to lose, the 0-1 teams from the prior two days left everything on the diamond in a display that was an obvious uptick in competitiveness and overall entertainment. The end results as the day progresses are more hotly contested than the lopsided affairs that peppered the opening day.

Below, let’s take a look at how it all went down Saturday and which teams will move on in one of the sporting world’s most entertaining affairs.

Day 3 Scores

Standings

You can view the latest bracket courtesy of LittleLeague.org.

Day 4 Schedule

Day 3 Recap

Washington 7, South Dakota 5

Washington and South Dakota both got off to explosive starts Saturday, to say the least.

After the team that hails from the Northwest posted two runs in the top of the opening frame, South Dakota’s Matthew Hegre took control of the contest with a three-run homerun.

Chris Masse of the Williamsport Sun-Gazette detailed Hegre’s impressive performance to date:

As if to showcase just how evenly matched both sides were, though, the teams posted two runs apiece in the third inning. It was Washington that was able to keep that momentum alive from there on out, posting two runs in the fourth and an insurance run in the fifth.

The game did end with a huge amount of controversy, though, as South Dakota made a late push in the final frame but had a runner called out at the plate. The runner fell and then took a wide path around the catcher, who was struggling to get the ball in his glove. Per the broadcast, officials could not overturn the play because it was a judgment call on the field.

Arlingtonvoice.com editor Ken Costlow put it best after the ruling:

Hegre tied with Daniel Vigoren and Washington’s Karsen Tjarneberg with three RBI while Dylan Richey from the losing side was the best on the mound, going 3.2 innings and fanning five batters.

Australia 10, Czech Republic 1

Both sides entered Saturday after massive blowouts to start the tournament and were on the hunt to avoid being the first squad eliminated.

The Czech Republic suffered a 10-3 loss at the hands of South Korea Thursday, while things were even uglier for Australia in a 16-3 loss to Puerto Rico that took just four innings.

Despite this, Australia came out hot and struck first in the second inning. Javier Pelkonen then hit a home run in the fourth inning to make it 2-0.

Thanks to superb work from Australia’s Callum Schipp on the mound, the Czech Republic was unable to get on the board until the fifth inning. He tossed 5.1 innings overall and fanned 11 batters to lead the way for his team.

Things really got out of hand in the fifth inning, which saw Schipp‘s team post five runs in the frame. It was enough to awaken the opposition’s bats to the tune of a single run in the bottom of the frame, but three more from Australia put an end to the contest.

In total, Pelkonen finished with three RBI as the hottest batter on the day. He also tallied three hits, as did Matthew Coleman and Nicholas Riley.

The win marks Perth, Australia’s first at the LLWS, while the Czech Republic heads home with an 0-2 record. The tournament’s Instagram account captured the special moment:

Stay tuned, though, as the rest of Saturday’s slate touts impressive matchups that include teams not on the wrong side of lopsided blowouts in the past few days.

Canada and Venezuela, teams that both lost their opening games by just one run, will look to vent their frustrations on one another. Tennessee and Rhode Island will close out the day after close losses of their own. With their backs against the wall, fans should expect nothing but tense, thrilling contests the rest of the day.

Note: All statistics and info courtesy of LLBWS.org unless otherwise specified.

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When David Price prepared to make his debut with the Detroit Tigers, it had to be nice knowing he’d face a familiar foe. The Yankees made sure that feeling dissipated quickly.

Martin Prado and Brian McCann each went yard and Jacoby Ellsbury hit a run-scoring double, as New York put up three runs in the first five innings. Then Price reminded everyone why he was the trade deadline’s most coveted asset. 

The former Rays ace settled down and got into a groove as the game went along, hitting the showers having allowed only those three runs in 8.2 innings of work. Price exited with the Yankees’ potential game-winning run on first in the bottom of the ninth, with the score tied 3-3. Reliever Joba Chamberlain recorded the final out of the frame to send the game into extra innings. 

Price wound up with a no-decision, but the Tigers would eventually win 4-3 in 12 innings.

Hiroki Kuroda, who started for the Yankees, gave up three runs in his seven innings of work. He left after giving up a run in the sixth and seventh to take Price off the hook. 

Price was making his first start since being traded to Detroit in a three-team deal featuring the Rays and Mariners.

The lefty fanned 10 Yankees hitters and seemed motivated by the two home runs he gave up, recording easy outs in his final few innings.

But it’ll likely be those momentary bouts with mislocation that he’ll be thinking about later on Tuesday night.

After Victor Martinez’s sacrifice fly in the first gave the Tigers a 1-0 lead, Price entered the second seemingly in full command. He struck out Carlos Beltran in a hard-fought, seven-pitch at-bat and then started off with a well-placed ball to McCann. But the Yankees catcher sent a mistake from Price on the next pitch just barely over the right-field fence to even the score.

As ESPN Stats & Info noted, Price has been one of a select few pitchers McCann has dominated since moving to the AL East:

His next mistakes came an inning later, when Price allowed Brendan Ryan and Ellsbury to drill doubles he was lucky didn’t go over the fence. Ryan led off the inning with a shot to deep left and scored from third when Ellsbury, another offseason Yankees signing, sent another ball into the left-field gap. 

An uneventful fourth followed, but he was back to watching a ball sail over the fence in the fifth. Prado went ahead 2-0 in the count and got a hanging breaking ball on his third pitch, keeping his weight back and rocketing it over the left-field fence. It was Prado’s first home run since his deadline trade to the Yankees and his sixth of the season.

Chris Iott of MLive.com made note of Price’s preference to stay ahead in the count: 

Jimmy Traina provided the John Sterling call for Prado’s shot, which put New York ahead 3-1:

The final four innings were among Price’s least eventful. He allowed Prado to get the best of him again for a double in the seventh and allowed a no-out single in the ninth, but the Yankees failed to take advantage. Price was mostly able to force easy outs by pitching to contact. He only struck out two batters from the sixth through his exit, instead inducing a series of lazy ground outs.

Still, as SB Nation’s MLB Twitter feed notes, Price now leads the league in strikeouts:

Manager Brad Ausmus pulled him after a strikeout of Chase Headley in the ninth. He threw a remarkable 78 of his 112 pitches for strikes. His final line in many ways mirrors his last two with the Rays. Price has now given up exactly three runs and gone at least seven innings in three straight starts.

His streak of quality starts now stands at 13. If Tigers fans were hoping for a glimpse of the workhorse who has been the backbone of Tampa’s rotation for the last six years, they got what they bargained for. Writer Matt Sussman highlighted Price’s bulldog mentality:

The former Cy Young Award winner has one more year left of team control after this one, but he was brought in largely as part of an all-in push for 2014.

The Tigers now have a stake at the best starting rotation in baseball. They are the first team in history to have the last three AL Cy Young winners—Price, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander. Detroit is the seventh franchise in history to have three former Cy Young winners on its roster at the same time, discounting the order with which they won.

Add 13-game winner Rick Porcello and the criminally underrated Anibal Sanchez to the mix, and the Tigers have a world-beating rotation that will give Brad Ausmus fits deciding who to sit in the postseason. There has even been a growing sentiment about putting Verlander, a mainstay atop the rotation and a beloved figure in the city, in a closer or middle-relief role.

That sentence alone says all it needs to about the pressure on Price.

“It does add a little bit of pressure,” Price told reporters of coming to Detroit, “but in Tampa I was looked at as the difference-maker as well—not only the difference-maker, but just the leader of the staff. This staff, there’s five leaders, I feel like, with the way that these guys are throwing the baseball. I guess if Rick Porcello is our five, that’s pretty remarkable, the way he’s thrown the ball this year as well.”

Price also mentioned pressure being a self-created phenomenon, a quote that could have proved ironic had his shaky start continued. In the first few innings, it did indeed look like Price was pressing himself to create and impression and was leaving pitches hanging.

In the end, though, Price did as he usually does. He excelled. If this is a sign of things to come, the Tigers will have gotten exactly what they bargained for on deadline day.

Follow Tyler Conway (@tylerconway22) on Twitter

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Tim Lincecum did it again. The San Francisco Giants right-hander won his fourth straight start by holding the National League West rival Arizona Diamondbacks scoreless over seven innings at AT&T Park on Friday night.

The Giants won 5-0 to take the first of a three-game set. More importantly, the win kept San Francisco tied atop the division with the Los Angeles Dodgers, who lost to the San Diego Padres, 6-3.

With Friday’s outing in the books, Lincecum now has hurled a quality start in six of his past seven turns. Over that time, he’s compiled a 1.86 ERA and 0.81 WHIP with 37 strikeouts in 48.1 innings.

Aside from the strikeouts (a mere 6.9 K/9), those digits look an awful lot like the Lincecum of old, back when he was winning consecutive Cy Youngs in 2008 and 2009 and was widely considered one of the very best arms in baseball for a handful of years.

And of course, this recent string has been built around that no-hitter Lincecum spun on June 25—his second in less than a year.

Despite all of the above, however, there are two reasons why this hot stretch is more mirage than late-career revival. Let’s point ’em out here.

Lying and Underlying Numbers

It’s no secret that Lincecum has lost more than a few ticks off his once high-90s heater and hasn’t been all that good the past two seasons. So accepting that he’s suddenly just regained his former glory simply isn’t realistic.

In 65 starts across 2012-13, Lincecum posted a 4.76 ERA and 1.39 WHIP. His 3.95 FIP (fielding independent pitching) in that time looks a little better, but his ERA- (ERA adjusted for ballpark and league average) was 132—32 percent worse than average.

So how do those same underlying numbers, and a few others, look in 2014? Here’s a rundown of Lincecum’s stats this year compared to the previous two:

The point? By some measures, like K/9, BB/9 and FIP, Lincecum actually is pitching similar to, if not slightly worse than, he did in 2013 and not that much better than he did in his disastrous 2012—but this is masked by his strong surface stats.

Offensive Opposition

One key factor in all of this, and which helps explain why Lincecum’s traditional statistics look better this year: the competition. Or lack thereof.

Over this six-quality-starts-in-seven-outings period, here are his opponents, as well as a look at where they rank in a few offensive categories:

Clearly, Lincecum has been taking advantage of a very pitcher-friendly slate of late.

In fact, the Colorado Rockies offense is the only one that can be considered better than even below average, and that outing was in cozy AT&T Park and came with both Carlos Gonzalez and Nolan Arenado—two of the better Rockies hitters—on the disabled list.

Otherwise, Lincecum has faced the sorry one-through-nines of the New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals, as well as the the so-so lineup of the Arizona Diamondbacks twice, which to be fair is tougher for him than most other pitchers because of this: 

And to round things out, he’s drawn the San Diego Padres, possessors of the worst offense in baseball—and perhaps baseball history—two times, the first of which was the no-hitter.

Skeptical much?

Bottom Line

Despite all the ragging on him above, Lincecum still can be an effective starter, as he’s shown of late. He has the ability—if no longer the same raw stuff as when he was one of the best pitchers in baseball—to get through a lineup two, sometimes three times, and even dominate the opposition on occasion when everything is just so.

And he’s certainly proved to be durable, having made at least 32 starts each of his six full major league seasons. That’s not to be overlooked or underestimated, because pitching innings—even if they’re only slightly better than league-average innings these days—is something that provides plenty of value.

Fact is, though, Lincecum is now 30 years old and has lost a lot on his fastball—more than two miles per hour since 2011—which requires him to be that much better when it comes to control and especially command.

And Lincecum showed that Friday, as Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson told Steve Gilbert of MLB.com:

He’s got great command and he threw multiple pitches where he wanted to throw them. He had good sequences, kept the ball down in the zone. There was a low strike zone tonight and he made good use of it and used our aggressiveness against us and shut us down.

As more of a finesse pitcher, trying to be so fine can work, but there’s less room for error. When Lincecum’s location is off just a little or he can’t get a feel for one of his off-speed offerings in a given start, then he could be in for a long night. Or a short one, as it were. And let’s face it: With a career walk rate of 3.5 per nine, control has never been one of Lincecum’s fortes.

Lincecum himself realizes as much, recently telling Chris Haft of MLB.com:

The difference between being good and bad is very minute, especially at this level. That’s why I always try to stay even-keeled. You can’t get too excited about the good things because they’re not that far away from being bad, and vice-versa. It just helps you keep things in perspective. 

The takeaway from Lincecum’s recent performance, including Friday’s scoreless victory, is that he’s showing he can have success while pitching differently than he used to when he still could overpower hitters. He’s making adjustments, and that’s paying off. At least for now.

But this isn’t the Tim Lincecum of old. If anything, it’s simply an older Tim Lincecum.

Statistics come from MLB.com, Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs.com, except where otherwise noted.

To talk baseball or fantasy baseball, check in with me on Twitter: @JayCat11

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Six starts into his MLB career, Mets right hander Jacob deGrom could hardly be considered wholly responsible for his winless record. deGrom, after all, compiled a 3.44 ERA while lasting at least 5.2 innings in each outing. The Mets’ moribund offense was at least partly to blame.

But on Monday night in front of a nationally televised audience, deGrom become undone. He failed to make it out of the fifth inning, surrendering 12 hits to a Cardinals offense eager to pounce. St. Louis torched deGrom for six runs en route to a 6-2 victory.

He allowed six consecutive Cardinals to reach base in an immensely frustrating fifth inning, with four runners coming around to score. 

Matt Holliday drove in the 1000th RBI of his career in the contest, earning a brief standing ovation from the Cardinals faithful.

The Mets employed an intriguing lineup technique, hitting deGrom eighth ahead of left fielder Eric Young. Perhaps manager Terry Collins liked the idea of placing Young next to leadoff man Curtis Granderson. 

But the Mets’ offense was exceedingly ineffective, generating just five hits. No player recorded more than one hit, and Lucas Duda’s double was the team’s only extra-base hit. 

Mets third baseman David Wright, who is having a historically bad season, was 1-4 and elft two runners on base. Wright, a career .299 hitter, is batting just .262 this year.

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