Tim Lincecum and Christy Mathewson

Tim Lincecum struck out 12 New York Mets last night.  That game was the 29th double digit strikeout game of his career.  That gives Lincecum more double digit strike out games than any Giants pitcher ever, including Christy Mathewson whose record Lincecum broke.

I'm not going to get into who the better pitcher is.  I am going to say that, thus far into Lincecum's career, Mathewson is the better strike out pitcher.

Through 130 games, 129 starts and 858 innings, Lincecum has 964 K's.  10.11 K's per 9 innings.
Through Mathewson's first 125 games, 113 starts and 1013 innings, he had 662 K's.  5.88 per 9 innings.

So, how can Mathewson be a better strikeout pitcher?

This graph may help answer that question.

*Click to make bigger

The light blue line is Tim Lincecum's K/9 through his career.  Between 9 - 11 K's per 9.
The orange line is the league average K/9 through Lincecum's career.  Around 7 K's per 9.
The green line is Christy Mathewson's K/9 through out his career.  Between around 6.5 and 2 K's per 9.
The purple line is the league average K/9 through Mathewson's career.   Between 2 and 4 K's per 9.

Obviously, Mathewson struck out less batters per 9 innings than Lincecum did.  But also obvious is that pitchers in general struck out less batters in Matthewson's time than those in Lincecum's time.

The darker blue line is Christy Mathewson's K/9 divided by the league average K/9.
The red line is Tim Lincecum's K/9 divided by the league average K/9.

You can see that Mathewson strikes out slightly more batters relative to the league average than does Lincecum.

"Context matters" we like to say.