Pineda On TV
Dave · March 16, 2011 at 6:21 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Michael Pineda takes the hill for the M’s against the Brewers tonight, and the game is on TV. I’m going to be throwing my thoughts in the comments for the first few innings, at least. I’ve got a long post on the rotation basically ready to go, but have been holding it off until getting to see Pineda tonight. I saw him live (although from a mediocre-at-best vantage point) last Friday and my feeling was that he needs some more time in the minors, but I’m willing to be swayed if he shows some legitimate secondary pitches tonight.
Game starts at 7:05 and is on FSNW.
cool.
thanks for keeping your head while making this evaluation. there are going to be plenty of people (not the least of which is sitting at my computer) who will see everything through rose-colored glasses almost regardless how he pitches.
Jeff Sullivan mentions it here, but the other key to Pineda’s start is consistency with his delivery.
In his first few spring training games, he’s lost his location a few times and struggled with wildness. This matches up with what I saw in Tacoma last year – for a guy with a low walk rate, he’s prone to lapses in concentration that result in wildness. When he repeats his delivery, he’s got great control. When he doesn’t, he’ll throw 4-5-6 balls in a row that aren’t terribly close.
Part of that is his age and relative inexperience, but his physical growth has to be a factor. He’s huge now, but at Wisconsin he was 6’3″ and skinny. This isn’t ancient history – Michael Pineda learned to pitch, professionally, with an entirely different body. From a lanky, whippy guy, he’s become a destroyer-class giant. That’s GOT to affect his mechanics.
1st pitch 95
2nd pitch lined for a double by Rickie Weeks. Hmm.
That one was centered.
Everything was up against Cleveland last week, and the same pattern starts against Weeks.
Anyone else looking for him to get roughed up so the M’s have an excuse to send him down for 2 weeks?
He’s using the slider a lot more frequently so far. It’s still not great, but at least he’s mixing it up.
First pitch slider to McGehee. He’s getting whiffs with it, but there’s still not much break to the pitch. It’s almost like a cutter, honestly.
Interesting that he climbed the ladder with two strikes to both Braun and McGehee. Similar to what I saw in Goodyear, the high fastball still seems to be his go-to strikeout pitch.
GOOD offspeed pitch to start off McGehee.
Solid inning, no wildness, good velo, but he didn’t really attempt secondary pitches. Still, good to see him throw the ball by Braun and get very weak contact to two other MLB hitters.
Well, we weren’t going to see any change-ups that inning, since it was nothing but RHBs to start off. He threw more sliders than I expected.
I missed the Yuni AB, so missed two sliders.
Here’s his first lefty. And Kottaras rocks a 2b off the wall on a FB.
The hole in Figgins’ glove isn’t helping him at all, that’s for sure.
There’s a CH to start off Boggs.
Defense hasn’t exactly been sterling.
And there’s the wildness.
Not to read too much into one at-bat in ST, but as this Boggs AB shows, he doesn’t have an outpitch against lefties.
Really interesting cutter/2-seamers now to Boggs. Good sink. Both balls, but I like them better than a few of the 1st inn. sliders.
I think that’s actually his change-up, Marc. 89 with no fade. Not a very good pitch, in my opinion.
The first had a ton of run.
He was playing around with a cutter at around that speed last year, and it seems a bit fast for his change, but I’d defer to you.
That looked like the change-up to Weeks, and he crushed it. That pitch just needs a lot of work.
Figgins looked like he had is back to that play…
No out pitch against lefties and he leaves a lot of stuff in the middle of the plate (which might also explain the low walk rates). I don’t know – other than the velocity, I don’t see much to warrant a spot on the 25-man roster.
A bunch of sliders to Braun. Better than the ones he threw in the first. Smart enough to know he couldn’t just go with heat against that kind of hitter.
Gutierrez badly misplayed that. Guy needs some work – between flying to Seattle for his stomach diagnosis and then flying to Florida to be with his father in law, he just hasn’t been around.
Thanks for the scouting report on Ichiro, Blow.
OMG, listening to these guys drone on and on about Eric Wedge and their insight of the game is absolute torture.
Getting a real ‘analyst’ (who knows scouting and a bit of stat crunching) in the booth might not ever happen, but it would make games a heckuva lot more interesting.
Good pitch, bad result.
Weeks stings the ball for the 3rd time. Not a double unless Wilson knocks it down, but that’s quite a few FBs that have been hit on the screws today. Didn’t expect that.
First look at Wilhelmsen – 95 to get Jeremy Reed to pop out.
Ugh. Ichiro just misses a FB off the bat of McGehee who gets a triple after a truly abysmal relay throw.
Goooo defense.
Wilhelmsen at 96 consistently so far. Let’s see a breaking ball!
And on cue, a big curve ball. Nowhere near the zone, but good movement.
Does Wilhelmsen have 2 different FBs? His 96mph FBs don’t have a lot of sink (as you’d expect), or about 6-9 inches of vert. movement according pitch fx. Then, there are a bunch of FBs at around 94 with 2-3-4″ of vertical break (the DP by Kottaras was under 2″ which is basically a sinker).
The sample size is tiny, and I don’t want to make a lot out of it yet, but man, that’d be some kind of arsenal. A power sinker and then a 96mph four seamer.
Sadly, this lineup both appears to be what we will be running out on opening day (with a possible ? at C), and looks quite impotent against Gallardo.
This lineup probably won’t be good, but don’t read much into how they do against Galllardo – he’s pretty good.
Good bad or indifferent, I still want to watch them…. Can anybody help? I have a powerful desire to watch the April 9 game from section 323 or 326 and the randomly assigned seats from the website won’t get me any closer than section 318. How do you get tickets where you want them, not where the random tool puts you?
StubHub is where I get all my tickets (approx. 30 games last year). You can pick the EXACT seat and you get interesting details about it too usually.
Oh, and almost always at less, or way less than face value.
Thank you. Maybe no discounts for Felix bobblehead night, but I want to sit where I want to sit….
Thank you, egreenlaw9, got ’em. Felix bobblehead at last….
89-MPH changeups without fading action have a different name- batting practice.
What’s the logical pitch that Pineda could develop against lefties, given his basic repertoire? It’s clear as day that he doesn’t have anything for them right now.
But I will say, the kid shows nothing but great attitude. It certainly looks like he listens. A tweak here and there, and this guy could be a real good one to have.
BTW, has anybody noticed that Wedge can do just about a dead-on impersonation of the late James Gammon (Skipper Lou Brown in “Major League”)? Minus the gravel voice.