Q.  Could Pineda be on the verge of catastrophic shoulder surgery?

A.  No, my extraterrestrial contacts have consulted the 2031 HOF plaque, and we are happy to report that Pineda will never be injured...

:- )  Felix Hernandez could be on the verge of catastrophic surgery.  And, yeah, loss of stuff frequently presages surgery.

But Pineda doesn't look like he's in pain to me, FWIW.  Guys whose arms are hurting -- they keep their arms as still as possible (experience talking here).  Pineda tosses the ball back and forth from glove to hand and back again ... enthusiastically bobs it up over his head... it's always moving, limber, agile.  He could be hurt, but his body language doesn't suggest it to me.

We find out that in 2009, Erik Bedard was in terrible pain for at least two months before being shut down.  The Mariners coaches' are all over Pineda, telling him "just throw hard in the first inning already!"  If he's hurting, he's certainly not telling his coaches.

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Also, Pineda gets loose, he gets right back up to 95-96.  Here is his velo graph for Thursday.  After the first, he's 92-96, just like Felix.  I haven't seen a lot of guys throw a whole bunch of 94-95 pitches and then go on the DL, have you?

It's odd.  Gil Meche, with his weak shoulder, was 95 first inning, and then tailed down to 88 mid-game.  That's the way with most weak shoulders.  Michael Pineda finishes the games strong.  That's pretty weird, and am not sure what to make of that part of it.

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Q.  Leaving us where?

A.  Leaving us ... high time for a start or two off, and an MRI, and the expectation here is the 4:1 odds he'd be in the clear.

Even if they don't do that, you could still see a Doug Fister outcome:  he just pitches through it, and the problem goes away, and one day he's just back up to 97 again.

240 innings, including playoffs, was never the plan anyway, was it?

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Q.  What do you guess the M's plan actually is?

A.  Zduriencik was on the radio about that last week.  Guy asked him about skipped starts.  Zduriencik said, I'm not gonna answer that, because the players hear you (LOL).

But following that conversation, what the M's have actually done is keep Pineda's pitch counts under 100.

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It was interesting to hear Zduriencik say that Pineda was "obviously a prized commodity" in years going forward and that "we're going to do the right thing."

It's not like the Mariners don't react to the radar-gun readings.  Mike Blowers, even in the booth, was shellshocked by pitch four.  They know, they know ... wait, that's another commercial.

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