Q.  What about Pineda's fastball ratio Tuesday?  SSI hates that, right?

A.  As a general rule, SSI tends to think that NPB pitching is more intelligent and evolved -- that MLB pitchers use their fastballs too much.

But general principles often don't apply to the concrete specifics of a given position.  Michael Pineda has SSI's blessing to throw 90%, literally 90%, fastballs if he's so inclined.

Pineda threw fastballs on 75 of 103 pitches Tuesday -- and got a 20% swinging strike percentage on those 75 !

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Q.  How can such a thing occur?  

How does a left hand ML star (like Adam Lind) swing through three fastballs, 1-2-3, when he knows they are coming?

A.  In this article, we discuss the point.  

A 96 fastball located is unhittable ... not "unhittable" in the hyperbolic sense, but "unhittable" in the sense that if you could throw it every time, you'd throw a bunch of shutouts.

It has been first principles to ML players literally since Walter Johnson, but it's opaque to sabermetricians...

And it's opaque to Mariners fans, since Michael Pineda is the first Seattle Mariner ever to throw pitches upper-90's on the black of the strike zone.

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Q.  The first Mariner ever ?

A.  Well.... Randy Johnson aimed for the knees, not the black, with his fastball (he did throw for the black with his slider).

Felix Hernandez occasionally humps up to 95-97 when he wants to challenge, but he can't routinely hit the black like that.  (Felix on a good day will hit the black a fair amount at 93-94 mph, but prefers to pound the knees.)

J.J. Putz, perhaps for a little while there.

For a while in his first two seasons, Freddy would throw 94-96, down the middle, and the ball would swerve towards the black a lot.

But a guy who could pound the black with the fastest FB in the American League?  Which Mariner ever did that? .... so it's understandable if we don't have our arms around Pineda's game.

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Q.  .... okay, pitching stars outside Seattle?

A.  Schilling, Clemens, Seaver, Verlander ....

If those sound like big names, you go find guys leading Fangraphs in fastball velocity, who walk 1+ or 2+ men per game.

We're not saying that Michael Pineda is a HOF'er already, but we are saying that a located plus-plus fastball is a DOMINATING weapon.

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Most pitchers need to keep the hitters guessing.  But if Michael Pineda can hit the black at 96 mph, well.... it doesn't make a lot of sense to throw anything else.  It's like Gaylord Perry's spitter or Sparky Lyle's screwball.  If they can't hit it, why worry about it.

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Q.  What was Pineda's overall swinging strike % again?

A.  He threw 18 swinging strikes in 103 pitches -- almost double the rate of Felix or Lincecum -- and they knew what was coming.

He can't maintain that rate, any more than Strasburg was going to fan 16 men per game.  But Pineda might easily lead the AL in SW% and fastball velocity.

He's off to a Tim Lincecum, Justin Verlander start here.  Every inch of one.

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