The Brewers looking at Michael Pineda for the second time in a week.  Same guys in the lineup, even.

Nine up, nine down, 33% of Pineda's pitches swung on and missed.  Together with last week's 16-for-63 .... that's 22-for-81, a 27% SW% he's rollin' on.  Felix' percentage being a skosh under 10.  

As we've been advised, Pineda's a solid contributor but nothing exciting.  Or, as others have been advised, since he has no ML-caliber secondary stuff, he can't put hitters away.

We know, we know, it's so unlike us here at SSI, to chortle when the dice come up 7 ... but you know what they say.  Be Advised.  Be Very Advised.

.........

Justin's 20-team Head-to-Head points league is comprised mostly of national players, few from Seattle ... Using the tried-and-true $9 Pitching Staff stratagem, BABVA took hitters in the first 12, 14 rounds and then nabbed Bedard and Pineda around round 14-15 or something... hope they can bail us out :- )

Vargas went undrafted, a lefty in Safeco.  Hm.

..........

In the first 18 pitches, Pineda threw ALL strikes to 8 of 9 batters ... 14 strikes and 4 balls, all to Fielder! ... and the Brewers were swinging at all the first pitches.

They're out on those first pitches, too, and after three innings, Pineda was on pace for a 54-pitch shutout... (edit to note, GameDay might have been bubbling, spitting and smoking slightly, but the blizzard of strikes had the Brew just as snowed in...)

.............

FOURTH INNING:  1st-pitch strike to Weeks, he's swinging, flies out.  Completely ridiculous the % of strikes, but Dave Neihaus would be swooning in ecstasy.  He loved 90-pitch games.

Carlos Gomez goes down 1-2-3, with two more swinging strikes.

Mark Kotsay, first-pitch swinging (!), grounds a single off Jack Wilson's glove for the Brew's first "hit" ... wonder how long till Kennedy replaces him...

Fielder walks - again on 4 pitches!   13 hitters, 19 strikes, 8 balls, every called ball to Prince Fielder?!

Pineda gets Betancourt on ... ummm .... a first-pitch ball in play .... oh hey!  A single to RF, with Langerhans throwing Kotsay out at home.  Langerhans has done everything he's needed to do and then double that and then triple that up again.

.........

Pineda keeps this Iron Mike pitch location up, he's going to run a season like that one where Carlos Silva walked 9 batters... that's the only other season I remember whether the pitcher just figured, hey, why throw four pitches in an AB...

The other guys are going to have to hit their way on, that's for sure.

.

FIFTH INNING:  Lefty Boggs up against Carnage:

pitches and pop them up on the infield.

............

After 5 full innings, Pineda has thrown all of 33 pitches, ten of them (30%) swinging strikes.

Slap me silly.  Good thing the Brew got a look last week.

.

SIXTH INNING:  A first-pitch flyout, then two more 3-pitch punchouts.  Seven pitches, 5 swinging strikes.

15 more swings and misses.

*Edit to add, Baker gives 77 pitches -- Perhaps GameDay was listing first-pitch outs where several pitches were used.  In that case it would be interesting to know how many more SW% Pineda got in the truncated AB's.

In any case, of course, Pineda's getting 2x, 3x the swings and misses that a Tim Lincecum gets.  Just a few games, of course, but those games are giving baseball all the seismo's it should need.

.

Drive home safely,

Dr D