Heard on Sportscenter or baseball tonight that homer was the fastest pitch in MLB since 2009 to be hit for a homer.

Old Wainwright may be back. Looks awesome tonight. Rolling scoreless through 8, working that nasty ass curveball. :thumb:

Four hit complete game shutout for Wainwright. :rockon:

The Madres - the cure for what ails you. :D

Those smiles after the game were excellent. I would have been pissed if he would have been pulled. There was more at work here than one ball game. You could just see the joy of his fellow players for waino. Having a fully recovered Waino and a recovering Carp will be a fantastic assesst in case Lynn hits the wall. Or Loshe/Westbrook fall off a cliff.

Still barely hitting 90; operating mostly at 89.

The Padres suck....badly. Like really really badly. Buck will try to suggest they don't, but they're unquestionably the 2nd worst team in MLB and the worst team in the NL. If they played the Twins, the game would be called after 20 innings at 0-0 because the crowd would have all killed themselves and the flies/smell would overcome the umpires.

Wait until Wainwright's able to go through a start against a major league team without hanging several dozen curveballs and/or getting a swing and a miss on a fastball before declaring him back. But it has to be a major league team - the Padres do not count.

He still looks like a slightly better version of Jeff Suppan circa 2004 to me right now.

Well, this is a bit more pessimistic than I'd like, but I agree, it will be nice to see this outing against a team that doesn't suck. Sure would have been nice to see it against Atlanta last weekend. :grr:

The velocity thing worries me a ton.

A pitchers velocity generally stabilizes around his 6th start. If it hasn't come back by that point in the season, it isn't going to. And frankly, you rarely ever see a pitcher just gain velocity a season later, even coming off TJ surgery (most of them will gain command and consistency, but not velocity).

If Waino's cap is 90 MPH, you have to lower his ceiling. He's no longer a legitimate CY contender at that point; he's just a very good #2 starter.

So yeah, it's a little pessimistic, but it worries the hell out of me.

Fangraphs is showing his average fastball velocity as down a bit but nothing dramatic. 89.7 this year vs. 91.1 in 2010, 90.9 in 2009 and 90.1 in 2008.

1.5 mph is pretty drastic.

Understand - Waino is my favorite Cardinal. He's the nicest guy on the team and we could never ask for anything more from a player than we get from that guy. If he's throwing 85, I'd still want him extended.

I want nothing more than to see him back out there owning that mound like he did in 2010.

But I'm also not going to pass off a 1.5 mph loss in velocity as immaterial, especially when he appears to be overthrowing on occasion to even get to that 89 and thus straightening out and/or rolling a curveball (hence his slightly increased changeup velocity).

Tangent here but what do you think about Lincecum's loss of velocity?

Lincecum was a physical freak of nature that was able to overcome shockingly inefficient mechanics for 5+ seasons. When you're blessed with a thunderbolt of a right arm, you can get away with it.

But as he's thrown more innings, his arm strength just isn't what it once was. And frankly, those mechanics are still inefficient as hell. He holds his arm too low as he begins his acceleration (so he fights uphill with his arm), he turns his shoulders too much to get a full drive forward and creates a ton of drag.

For all the talk about how his dad created his 'injury free' mechanics - they're horrid for the purpose of maximizing the energy he can create with his legs and transfer to his arm. And now that his arm isn't good enough to make up for the fact that he's a pure arm thrower, he's throwing slop.

I think Lincecum is done as an elite pitcher. If he eventually decides "to hell with it, I'll throw it out for as long as I can", he may be able to get another good season or two before coming undone. It will require that he alters his mechanics to increase his efficiency (and undo some of his deception) and it will require that he just pitch through pain, but it could happen.

It's either that or he just has to become a much much smarter pitcher. Felix Hernandez has lost just as much velocity as Lincecum but he's learned to set up hitters and rely on location/movement to generate outs. Lincecum's still trying to pitch like he can throw 97 and frankly that's just not going to work for him anymore. He needs to figure out how to generate more movement on his heat, get on top of it and start getting outs like the #3 starter that his stuff suggests he may be these days.

I didn't get to watch much of the game, but in the couple of middle innings I did see, I thought his fastball looked better...touching 92 more regularly and his curveball and the more familiar bite and tilt. Granted it is the Padres, but I thought overall it was a more optimistic view of a true return to his previous self. Time will tell, I think he will adapt no matter what because he has always been a pitcher who could deal with not having his good fastball to be effective.

Greg Maddox is scoffing at your assumption.

Yrs, I think the velocity issue is dependent on what type of pitcher you are in the first place.

If you never were a power pitcher then losing 1.5mph isn't huge. Not saying it isn't anything to be concerned about but guys that don't throw that hard and use location and movement won't be bothered near as much.

Waino while not being a finesse guy wasn't and isn't a power pitcher by any means.

If he was throwing 86 like Pedo was at the end then that's a whole different story.

Adams looks like the real deal.