Joel Pineiro Who?

Breaking down Joel Pineiro's great start to the season is harder than watching Chris Berman wear a Hawaiian shirt in HD.

Good morning Cardinal Nation. I wish I was more motivated to say "Good Morning" at any time before 10 o'clock, but that's about as likely as a family of small birds finding nest in Ryan Franklin's beard.

The artist formerly known as Joel Piniero struck again last night, this time to the tune of 9 innings, 2 hits, 1 walk, 1 strikeout, 22 ground outs, and no cramps. His ESPN game score reached 83, which, unfortunately, wasn't good enough for the top ten game scores in the National League.

Nay, he already has a spot on that list, sitting comfortably at 5th place, behind Chris Carpenter two spots up and ahead of Kyle Lohse one spot below. 5th freakin' place! Since when did Pineiro become capable of pitching the 5th best game in the NL, much less barely elude making the top ten again with his 83 last night? I mean, we already knew he was capable of this kick save and a beauty, but actually playing baseball? Who knew?

What exactly has changed this season, besides a weakening in the infield defense around him, has been what I call THE NEGATION OF THE DINGERS. Joel's home run prone antics in previous years have almost completely reversed, now at a meager 0.19 HR/9 and trending downward.

To put it in perspective, Pineiro's career HR/9 is 1.03, and last year's was 1.33. Joel's ground ball rate is a staggering 2.71 GB/FB and home run per fly ball rate is an equally impressive 2.9%. So, not only is Joel not giving up fly balls, but, even when he does, only 2.9% are being hit well enough to leave the yard. That last sentence probably takes Dave Duncan's breath away.

Crampnasty Pineiro's strikeout rate is terrible, only striking out 3.88 batters per nine innings. But he still is saying "Suck It" to the institution of conventional wisdom and is putting up a 3.33 K/BB.

So, to get this straight, he isn't giving up fly balls, when he does they prefer landing on the grass instead of people's heads, he isn't striking people out more than Cal Eldred probably could, and he isn't walking them either. This season is proving to be more of an anomaly than Bud Smith.

But wait, there's more. You'd think a pitcher having this amount of success with numbers popping off every career norm he's had is probably just having a good year. Not so. His GALIFB, Generally Accepted Luck Indicator for Bloggers, otherwise known as BABIP, Batting Average on Balls Hit in Play, is exactly at .300, right where we'd constitute a pretty average-luck season. If it were extremely low, we'd know that number would regress back up to the mean, and vice versa. There's nowhere to regress for Joel. He's unregressable.

His LOB% is similarly unindicating that his success is extremely lucky. Right now he's stranding 64.1% of runners on base, lower than his career average of 70.3%. If he were stranding runners at, say, 90%, you'd know that wasn't going to last. 64% is pretty sustainable, and we again have nothing to indicate a regression other than previous years' performances.

I can't understand you, Joel. Extreme ground ball tendencies, near-perfect strike zone comprehension, no indications that there's a lucky horseshoe in your back pocket. There must be only one other explanation. He's juicing.

How else could we explain that fact that his fastball is actually losing velocity, or the spasmatic cramps on the mound from poor hydration or lack of physical fitness, or that growth of facial hair taking over his face?

I wonder how many New Yorkers said, "Who the **** is Joel Pineiro" last night? I love it.