He's starting today for the GCL Mets, 12 PM game...there arent live updates of this game on MILB.com...anyone have anything???
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2983780 Getting better. 2 unearned in 5 innings. The thing that confuses me is when did Pedro develop a sinker?
not sure what they're waiting for at this point. I'm from the school that believes the more starts he gets in the bigs the better.so long as he's healthy. I mean even if he's ineffective at first, he can't be much worse than Lawrence. Let him get used to the big boys as quickly as possible.
He's gotta build up his stamina. No point in wasting the pen on his starts, regardless of how good (or bad) he is in his 5 innings of work that he'd be able to give at this point. We need them to get all the rest they can get. It's definitely a more encouraging start, I read he hit 89 on the radar gun. I don't think hitting 90 or 91 by the time he's up here is out of the question. it's great to hear that all his work on his sinker between these last 2 starts really paid off as well.
Seriously, where did this sinker come from? When he was with the Sox he threw a fastball, curve, slider, and change. The slider was more of a cutter, and the change moved like a screwball, but that's what he called them. When did he start throwing a sinker?
I honestly think that it's something that he's starting working on in conjunction with his rehab. He was talking after his first start about how he was just trying it and "wasn't happy with it's progress" or something to that extent. So, he apparently worked hard on it and used it almost exclusively in the first 2 or 3 innings of last start, and then mixed it in with his normal pitches this last one. I seriously don't ever remember him having it in 05 or 06. I guess an old dog can learn some new tricks.
Glad to see the progress, hopefully after another start we can finally send Brian Lawrence where he belongs on a minor league ballclub.
This is good news, but I agree with what Gary and Ron were saying yesterday that Pedro needs to have a start or two against AA or AAA competition - the 90 MPH fastballs that A level players miss are ones that AAA or MLB players might (or might not) kill. Apparently he doesn't want to do that, and Willie, Omar, and Rick are going to let him get his way.
Well I think Pedro is just trying to get his pitches right and his stamina up, and then instead of going up to AA or AAA he would go straight to the majors since we have a comfy lead and he is an upgrade over Lawrence
I just can't see any reason why he can't get his stamina up pitching against batters who at least approximate the ones he'll see when it really counts. No one would care either way about the results, but it could help him get a much better idea of where he is. He's probably said 20 times that he can't tell where he is until he faces major leaguers - well, that's certainly true if you only face A-level players, but a lot less true if you face AAA-level players.
kind of on-topic, whatever the hell happened to Duaner Sanchez? that is another SOB we could use right now instead of the stiffs we have in the bullpen.
I saw in the paper this morning that he is definetely done for this year, they are hoping he will be able to pitch winter ball..
