Tagged: Joel Pineiro

Back-patting

A month in, some predictions I made here that I’m very happy about:

 Joel Pineiro might have been the off-season’s most overrated signing… 


Pineiro: 2-3, 5.76 ERA.

…just for good measure, Cliff Lee is not only hurt – he has the most nagging and unpredictable of injuries for a baseball player, ‘something in the abdomen.’

First appearance coincides with first discussion of his next team. Yikes.

What’s the psychological saw about repeating the same unsuccessful action with confidence that this time it will succeed? The Brewers are confident Dave Bush, Doug Davis, and Manny Parra and/or Jeff Suppan constitute three-fifths of a pitching staff.

Bush, Davis and Suppan are 1-6. Parra hasn’t started – yet – but he’s 0-1.

Here’s a silly little question for ARIZONA about Edwin Jackson. If he’s good enough for you to have given up on Max Scherzer, why is he pitching for his third team in as many seasons? 

1-3, 8.07.

Manny Being Just Manny (No PEDs) is a just slightly better offensive force than, say, Mark DeRosa. The McCourt Divorce may be a lot more interesting than the 2010 Dodgers, and a lot less painful to watch.

Your 2010 Dodgers, 11-14.

Matt Capps is likelier to be fine in Washington than Octavio Dotel is in Pittsburgh (he can’t get lefties out!)

The above may be an ultimate no-contest before June 1. Neal Huntington’s statement about the Pirates’ closer situation is the reason most people usually say “without equivocation.” The question about Evan Meek’s ascent seems to be only when (ok, a little bit “how” – like “how do the Pirates explain they wasted 99% of their free agent budget on an 8th inning guy?”)

Andruw Jones, Francisco Liriano, Fausto Carmona and even Eric Chavez are your seasonal comebacks…

Not bad, huh? I mean you even have to give partial credit because it’s May 2 and Chavez isn’t hurt yet.

Wow does BALTIMORE not have pitching…

Actually they’ve been a little better than that.

…keep the Ortiz thought in the back of your mind. What if the second half of ’09 was the aberration, not the first half? Will the Sox have to bench him? And if so, could the twists and turns of fate find them suddenly grateful that they had been unable to trade Mike Lowell?

We’ve already seen this play out in one direction, it may now be reversing – but long term this will not end happily for Big Papi.

I think Tampa ends up with the best record…This time I like the Rays to win the Series, five years after other owners seriously murmured about moving them or contracting them…


So far so good. Notice I have left out the prediction about Ike Davis not coming up before June 1. Or May 1. I’ll still stop now, I’ve strained something batting myself on the back.

Nice Prediction, Keith

Cardinals over the Dodgers. Followed by Cardinals rallying tonight to beat the Dodgers in Game Three and then the inevitable great next starts by Carpenter and Wainwright doing in L.A.

The inevitable great next starts by Carpenter and Wainwright will be next April.
Truth be told, a lot of us blew the call on the series. But I’ve been watching Joel Pineiro very closely since mid-season (fantasy league stuff) and about September 10 or so his unhittable and essential sinker stopped doing so. To assume he could be the stopgap in the season-breaking game for the Cards was folly on my part. And Tony LaRussa’s.
And underestimated in the finale, where the heck was Yadier Molina going from second base, with one out and the Cards desperate for a run? Did he lose track of outs? Was he in a hurry to start the off-season?
MEANWHILE IN BOSTON:
Maybe the Red Sox do go out in three or four but at least Jason Bay revived my interest in collecting “You Knows.” Years ago every athlete relied on the verbal crutch to get through many a dimwitted interviewer’s questions, and my first national publicity came when Sports Illustrated featured my little display of the most frequent usage, while I was at UPI Radio in 1980.
Said Jason in a sound bite just played on TBS:
“I think people tend to forget, you know, those guys are trying to get us out. Two guys that are pretty good, that are not just, you know, flipping balls out there underhanded and we’re not getting hits, I mean, you know, I think, you know, not passing the buck by any means, we need to do, you know, a better job offensively but, you know, the guy wasn’t 15-and-whatever he was on the year, because he’s, you know, doesn’t know what he’s doing, you know it’s just, their pitching’s better than our hitting right now.”
Eight in 27 seconds, hardly a record (Micheal Ray Richardson of the Knicks actually managed something like 16 in 32 as I remembered — he was a rehabilitated stutterer who had swapped “you know” in for his other problem, so he was ruled out in favor of somebody who produced about 9 in 20 seconds) but perhaps the MLB mark for the 21st Century.
BABE RUTH AND A BIG CROWD:
As promised, here’s the New York Times follow-up on the September 9, 1928 film just found of Babe Ruth and a crowd of 85,000 at Yankee Stadium. And I hepped!