Tim Lincecum has been working hard to remain effective as he loses speed on his fastball.

Now that his fastball hovers around 90 mph, Lincecum has worked to locate it better while also throwing an increasing number of breaking and off-speed pitches in the zone for strikes.

"He's wanted to locate his fastball better, but he knew he wasn't going to throw 92 or 93," Dave Righetti said. "He's OK with 87 to 90. The other stuff has always been there; it's just that the other teams respected his fastball in the zone, and he's just doing that much better. He's just looking for location and that crispness that he wants now, and he's just a more comfortable pitcher on the mound now because of it."

He's using his curveball more often now (16.5 percent of the time) than he has since 2009, but he's also throwing his split-change hybrid more than 25 percent of the time, according to ESPN Stats & Information.