New York Yankees Michael Pineda has proven to be real deal in 2017

New York Yankees starting pitcher Michael Pineda has delivered thus far in 2017.

The biggest question mark coming into the 2017 season for the New York Yankees centered around what many predicted would be a mediocre, at best, starting pitching staff.

Every pitcher besides Masahiro Tanaka was an uncertainty, including 28-year-old Michael Pineda. But, the towering right-hander affectionately referred to as “Big Mike,” has done nothing but impress through his first few starts of the 2017 season.

Pineda has been at the top of the American League in statistical categories all season. He ranks ninth in walks per nine innings with 1.3, third in strikeouts per nine with 10.9, sixth in strikeouts with 50 and first with 8.3 strikeouts per every walk.

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What’s helped Pineda see more success in 2017 is the effectiveness of his slider and his ability to get batters out when he gets ahead of them in the count. There were countless games last season where Pineda would pitch well for the first few innings and then unravel in the third or fourth innings, and that can be attributed to his failure to get batters out.

Pineda would often get ahead 0-2 or 1-2 on hitters but would either miss on his location and pay the price on the next pitch or work the count to full and then walk the batter. That’s where the dominance of his slider has really kicked in so far this season.

That slider didn’t have the bite last year that it has this season, starting a little above the knees and usually hitting the dirt after opposing batters are on their backswings. Why has this pitch been so lethal this season as opposed to years prior? The reasoning may lie within Pineda’s other pitches instead of merely how he’s throwing his slider.

His fastball has a bit more jump on it this season, and Pineda has been able to keep batters on their toes by using both pitches regularly. When he gets ahead in counts with a fastball, opposing hitters are early on their swings and miss the ball completely. Throwing a fastball after the hitter just saw a slider causes hitters to swing late and either strike out or fly out.

Although he’s sitting on a record of 3-2, Pineda has done nothing but pitch well since his awful first start in St. Petersburg against the Tampa Bay Rays. He has both his slider and fastball working, and the combination of the two is allowing him to finish off hitters that he gets ahead of in the count early.

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That’s something he couldn’t do last season, but something that makes him one of the best third spot starters in all of baseball.

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