Too Giant Tim Lincecum Drops 20 Pounds

Giants ace Tim Lincecum is one of the last people you'd think had a weight problem. And he doesn't -- not anymore, anyway.

Tim Lincecum, meet mortality. Tim Lincecum's metabolism, meet weight gain.

The San Francisco Giants' star pitcher won two Cy Young Awards on a diet that would make a nutritionist -- and most people -- sick: he once famously told media that he liked to eat at In-N-Out burger. Well, who doesn't -- but in Lincecum's case, he liked to eat three double-doubles, two orders of fries, and a strawberry milkshake.

Food intake such as this led Lincecum, who once weighed in at 168 pounds, to balloon to 196 pounds in October, he told USA Today. "I wore a lot of sweats that month," he told the newspaper -- and he was too damn fat, his father told him.

"My dad was making fun of it all off season," said Lincecum, who in the past has spent off seasons with his father back home in Washington state.

So he upped the cardio, adding swimming to his regular routine, and eschewed fast food entirely. He doesn't "crush vegetables by any means," he said, but McDonald's hamburgers make him sick. Diet and exercise have put him back down to a manageable and acceptable 175, he said.

"Obviously age is probably catching up to me too," said Lincecum, who is 27. "The metabolism isn't what it was."

Tell us about it.

The extra weight didn't seem to bother Timmy too much on the mound last season -- not as much as his team's lack of offense, anyway. Lincecum posted a very respectable 2.74 ERA, but the Giants scored two or fewer runs in 21 of his 32 starts, helping him to a 13-14 record, the first losing season of his career.

Put another way -- and Giants fans absolutely love this one -- if he were on the Yankees, he might have won 25 games.

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