Since the day Michael Pineda arrived from the Mariners, the Yankees have been waiting for him to travel from an inexperienced youngster with a filthy slider to a front-of-the-rotation arm.
Now, four years later, when the Yankees need Pineda the most, the towering right-hander has come up small.
Forget the ability to strike out hitters. Ignore opposing players telling Carlos Beltran how much movement Pineda’s pitches have. Instead, focus on the math attached to Pineda’s name in the stat sheet following Wednesday night’s 7-3 loss to the Royals in front of 31,226 mostly bored Yankee Stadium customers.
In 5 ²/₃ innings, Pineda allowed six runs, six hits, walked four and whiffed seven.
With help from first baseman Dustin Ackley, who failed to turn Eric Hosmer’s one-out grounder into an inning-ending double play, Pineda was miserable in the opening frame when the Royals scored four runs. Three of them came when Salvator Perez crushed a middle-of-the-plate slider for a three-run homer that dropped the Yankees into a ditch far too deep to escape.
At some point, Pineda’s stuff needs to turn into better results. In seven starts, he is 1-4 with a hefty 6.28 ERA and has given up 49 hits and 13 walks in 38 ²/₃ innings. He is high among the reasons the Yankees are stuck in the AL East cellar.
“Very much so,” pitching coach Larry Rothschild said when asked if the relationship between Pineda’s stuff and numbers was puzzling. “You look at the strikeouts and things like that and it’s just the inconsistency. That’s where the whole thing comes from. He will locate the fastball and the slider he gets swings and misses on, and then leave some in the middle of the plate.”
Pineda’s first-inning struggles in four of his seven starts suggest a change of his pre-game program, but Rothschild didn’t indicate drastic alterations are coming.
“It’s kind of hard to figure out,” Rothschild said of Pineda giving up 19 hits (four homers), 12 earned runs, three walks and hitting a batter in the opening frames of games. That translates to a 15.43 ERA in the first inning. “We may play around with [the pre-game] routine. When he leaves the bullpen, he is pretty much ready to pitch.”
With a 27-29 record in 75 big league starts, it is possible Pineda, 27, is what the numbers show: a mediocre pitcher with eye-popping moments that aren’t repeated enough.
And inconsistent pitchers aren’t front-of-the-rotation starters on teams expected to contend for postseason action.
“I know I can be better. The only thing is to continue to get better, keep working and do my best on the mound and keep fighting,” said Pineda, whose only win was on April 6 against the Astros in the second game of the season when he allowed six earned runs and eight hits in five innings, but was fortunate enough to start a game the Yankees won, 16-6.
Since Pineda has options he can be sent to the minor leagues, but that’s not happening. And Joe Girardi didn’t sound like a manager planning on bumping Pineda to the bullpen — he never has appeared in relief as a big leaguer — when CC Sabathia returns from the disabled list.
“He threw the ball so well in spring training,” Girardi said. “For Michael, it has been a couple of innings he gets in trouble. The stuff is there. We have to get him going.”
Yet after 47 games in pinstripes, the Yankees have to know what they have — and that is a pitcher who is still a long way from being the No. 2 starter behind Masahiro Tanaka and may never get there.