=== Let's! Go! to! the Video! Tape! ===

Rather than just going "Wow, isn't he great!," :- ) let's get to specifics, what Michael Pineda did on Monday that other pitchers -- say Edwin Jackson or Ervin Santana -- could not have done.

Let's start with the first 4 strikeouts, those coming in innings 1 and 2.  (Per Dr. Kelly's theorem, 57% of Pineda's strikeouts came in the first 28% of his innings.  Then the Twins quit on the game and played not to be embarrassed, rather than playing to win.)

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=== IP 1 - Trevor Plouffe - Strikeout ===

WHAT PINEDA DID THAT EDWIN JACKSON WOULD NOT HAVE DONE:  To understand the nature of the hitters' problem, inscribe a circle* inside the strike zone.

In eight (8) pitches, Michael Pineda would have hit that circle* only one time -- that being a "challenge" pitch, his fastest pitch of the AB.

And yet, despite missing the "circle" seven of eight times... virtually all of Pineda's pitches were strikes!  

That is what we mean by Maddux-esque (Madduxian?  Madduxly?) command.  VERY few pitchers, amigo, can (1) get ahead in the count and (2) stay out of that circle.  It's practically impossible to do, is why.  

Go over to GameDay right now and click through the batters.  Time after time after time, Pineda puts no pitches in the circle -- and yet he threw 70/99 strikes.

There are maybe five people in the world who can do that, and Michael Pineda is one of them.  Pineda leads major league baseball in first-pitch strikes, by a wide margin, and he's the only guy in the top 10 who throws hard.

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If you were a pro hitter, you would understand how important it was to get a pitch inside the circle.  And you'd understand why your job is impossible if you can't get one.

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As to the strikeout itself?   Pineda had Plouffe defensive and guessing, and on a 3-2 pitch Pineda went up the ladder hard.  Plouffe just couldn't catch up.

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=== IP 1 - Jason Kubel - Strikeout ===

for the home plate ump to call, you know what I'm saying?

Here, Pineda did get a little of the inscribed circle.  He did not get any of the basketball-sized hot zone.

In this single AB, Pineda's command was merely "plus," not Madduxian.  Rare on the night.

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WHAT PINEDA DID THAT EDWIN JACKSON WOULD NOT HAVE DONE:   Throwing mid-90's heat, Pineda moved the ball around the zone like this:

• Outside black
• bad pitch
• Jam pitch
• Catfish Hunter "four inches outside with two strikes" pitch

Dr. D was always very fond of the way that Catfish would expand the zone with two strikes.  He is tantalized to find Michael Pineda doing this very same thing ..... in the second month of his career!

Go through the games and you'll see Pineda beginning to streeettccccchhhhh that strike zone laterally.  This is especially effective with LHB's, since umps give a lot of outside black against LHB's.  Kubel is hard-wired to swing at that fourth pitch; it is a strike in MLB vs. LHB's.

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Curt Schilling pitched for five years never even throwing an offspeed pitch, because he could move mid-90's heat around the zone.  It continues to boggle my mind that --- > nobody outside the pro's understands why this makes the change-speed game moot. 

They're still talking about Pineda needing a third pitch.  He does not even need the second one.  Colon, Schilling, and Catfish didn't.

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