Q. So we take it, Pineda wasn't telegraphing his slider like you thought he would :- )
A. Either I was hallucinating last year, or he's completely fixed the issue ... probably the former.
Pineda's arm action is P-E-R-F-E-C-T on the slider, the deception wonderful.
We wanted to see some half positions from the hitters once in a while ... nope, they were taking full swings, again and again, often bad swings.
That's why Dr. D is so giddy. We feared for the deception on the slider, and the deception was Plus-Plus.
..........
Geoff Baker has quotes to that effect from Eric Wedge, who, strangely, was the only man on the planet watching the same game I was ...
... "He was up a little bit, but more importantly he got back down,'' Mariners manager Eric Wedge said. "The way he was using his secondary stuff, it was as good as we've seen it all spring.''
Wedge said Pineda's change-up versus lefties is a good pitch for him.
"It's something where he continues to gain more and more confidence with it,'' Wedge said.
So, what was most improved about it tonight?
"You just look at the swings,'' he said. "You look at the reaction of hitters. Hitters can always tell you so much. You look at whether they're taking a pitch, or whether they're swinging, or maybe just a little reaction up there. I think we saw all that tonight with Michael.''
Just so! The hitters didn't zero in on a single one of Pineda's sliders.
Rickey Weeks, third trip up, Pineda showed him the slider just inside for a called ball, and then doubled right up with the slider on pitch two ... it dove like a stukka, and Weeks swung over it badly.
Any pro will tell you: when you can double up a pitch, throw it back-to-back, and see the hitter that fouled up on #2, you have got yourself a weapon.
.
And .... kudos to Geoff Baker for a surgically-precise observation:
Pineda had a rough start tonight, but his slider was working throughout his four innings and his change-up really improved over his latter two frames.
Which is exactly correct (and a rather obscure catch, if you're a busy semi-celeb, rather than a hopeless 'net rat).
Pineda's first change was a UUU-gly high school pitch, crushed by Weeks for a double. The next two changeups were also terrible, all of them 87-89 mph .... but his last three-four changeups looked like Freddy Garcia. I loved this AB to Boggs in the third:
After two innings, Dr. D was braced to pronounce the change a tragedy, but fortunately Pineda saved me from silliness, by showing the real changeup after inning two.
Hey, it's spring training. Great SP's take until inning 2 or 3 to settle in, even in June...
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Q. Are you saying that Pineda will have Cy Young votes at the end of the year?
A. No. I'm saying that I'll draft him as a good #2-3 starting pitcher, right now, and that he has (a LOT of) upside past that.
I opened bidding with Felix' 4.52 ERA as a rookie; Sandy raised me with Greg Maddux' 5+.
Things can go wrong even for great youngsters. But in my opinion, Pineda is as ready to go now, as Felix was in 2007.
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Q. Dr's R/X?
A. Go off the plate a little more, dude. Keep throwing the 30-35% power sliders. Work that change a little as you go.
And get a blinkin' good agent.
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Q. Dr's Prognosis?
A. Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.
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Cheerio,
Dr D
I did see a lot of Bard moving his glove, Doc...I think Pineda was wild in the zone up...there were at least ten pitches that I counted where Bard set up down and outside and Pineda missed up and in.
I think command of his fastball needs to improve for him to star this season. But he's going to be good even with a wild fastball...at least as good as Felix '06 or '07.
Boggs maybe.
Pineda uncorks a fastball waaaaay out of the zone, through the RH batter's box(probably would've taken Richie Sexson's head clean off), and comes back with a ridiculous slider in on the batter's hands. The batter barely made contact with it, to stay alive. A bit high perhaps, but the break on it following that horrible WP elicited an audible snort from me, I won't lie.
Agree a 1000%. The OKC-MIA game was competing for my attention. Maybe I missed A LOT, but I really don't get why this perfectly acceptable outing, against a quality hitting squad, is damnning evidence against MP's ability to hold his own in MLB. Is this dude even season ready yet? I'd wager not.
Which is what occurs with Felix.
Gotta know what a typical ratio is. ML All-Stars walk three guys a game.
Pineda's FB command was ML plus.
:cpoints:
Which was typical of the great job I thought the Brewers did, that a pitch like that got fouled off.
:shrug: another lineup misses like four more of those strike-two pitches than the Brewers did, we have 7 K's in 4 IP, and everybody's happy... :- )
..........
We tell ourselves not to overemphasize ERA -- to look at K/9 and BB/9 and so forth. Then March 16, it's all about WHIP.
We're all 12-year-old baseball fans at heart :- )
I looked at the GameDay data. 3 things I noticed:
1) Raw stuff is better than advertised. Fastball consistently averaging 94-95mph. Thats David Price territory. Slider getting swings-and-misses.
2) Fastball command below-average, but in the strikezone. Elevated at times leading to hard hit pitches.
3) Velocity drop off in the 4th inning. Probably is just early-season rust, but something to look out for late in ST.
One thing GameDay doesn't show, is where the catcher's mitt is before the pitch. A lot of times, a FB is in a weird spot, but...that's where the catcher called for it.
Other times, the FB is centered, but ... the catcher wanted a challenge pitch.
............
First IP to Betancourt and Braun gave an indication of Pineda's command, once he gets into the season's rhythm:
BETANCOURT
94 fastball on the black, called 0-1
Slider outside on the black, garbage swing 0-2
94 at the knees, fouled off
Slider outside, tapped for a groundout
BRAUN
96 borderline, ump gives it to Braun, 1-0... great pitch
Slider for a garbage swing, 1-1
96 jam pitch on the hands, fought off for a foul, 1-2
95 up the ladder, as intended, swinging strikeout
........
Eight consecutive pitches executed as drawn up on the chalkboard. We get into May, the pitchers get sharper, let's see :- )
.........
To be sure, Pineda missed by a mile on about 10 of his 63 pitches. Which is a good ratio. All-Stars throw 35, 40 balls a game, a good portion of them way off target.
Looking forward to a Beltre Pineda matchup. A good slider will give Beltre fits. How good is the slider? Well...Let's see how many check swing checks Beltre comes up with.