End game

A final, grateful farewell to one closer.

And a hearty hello to a new one...maybe.

I’ll concede that the numbers don’t look good on Joel Pineiro.

In fact, they’ve gotten worse every year.

                        ERA                 WHIP

2001                 2.03                  0.942
2002                 3.24                  1.250
2003                 3.78                  1.266
2004                 4.67                  1.329
2005                 5.62                  1.481
2006                 6.36                  1.648

But this is all about scouting says Nick Cafardo. Who knows? Sometimes stats don’t tell the whole story, and I’m very interested to see how this story plays out.

Maybe, as a one inning guy, coursing with adrenaline, feeding off the energy of the fans, Pineiro can just go balls out and recapture what made him so good in his first few seasons. And if that happens, we will have caught lightning in a bottle in a very, very thin closers market. A gutsy move. Let’s see if it pays dividends.

And none other than our own Curt Schilling likes what he sees:

The only thing I know is that two years ago I thought this guy had as lively stuff as anyone I had seen in a long time.

He certainly did seem to tail off last year but during some of his games he showed the mid 90s electric stuff he had all the time a few years back.

I thought, from the first day I saw him, that he was built to be a reliever with an incredible arm on a Gordon sized body.
He'll gain a decent amount of velocity heading to the pen, if he can make the mental transition this guys a serious power arm on the back end.

His curveball, when he's fresh, is a strikeout pitch, his fastball certainly is as well, but it was his changeup that wow'd everyone. Tremendous arm action, ball died without looking like it was slowing down.

This, to me anyway, is a no lose signing. This kid gets in the right mix and environment and he ends up being that kid a few years from now people say "How the hell did we let him go?"

I know he tailed off the last two years but I see no downside to adding someone with this good of an arm and some experience under his belt.

Good enough for this fan.

See you at Hot Stove, Cool Music.