Six Yankees do what they must in order find greatness

Inside the Mind of the Yankees Michael Pineda

Big Mike has truly arrived. He always had the stuff to be the pitcher we now see every five days, but he could not seem to put it together consistently. It’s why his ERA for the last few years has been in decline. Oh god, was it in decline during his last three full seasons: 2011/3.74; 2015/4.37; 2016/4.82.

Not this year, for those of you who just joined the article and did not yet know the theme. It always seemed clear to most observers that Pineda was not finishing innings or batters. He would get to two strikes or two outs, and something would change. The same pitcher who looked untouchable a moment before was suddenly getting tattooed with the word home run on his generous right hand.

A Freudian Slip

Now, I don’t know the exact psychological problem. It might have been something akin to unsuccessful public speakers. They know how to start a sentence with force and hit the middle words well, but they tend to tail off towards the end of the sentence, finishing in a much more quiet and less-assured voice. That’s not a loss of focus, more of consistent vitality. Perhaps that was Pineda’s problem.

Loss of focus might have been the problem, though. Pineda would not be the first person who, once he completes the bulk of one task, moves on mentally to the next. He might have needed to work on focusing on each pitch of each at-bat before mentally moving on to the next batter.

Whatever the problem was, Pineda finally realized it, admitted it, and solved it. Bravo; his best performance yet. And no guess work here as I have heard the man say it himself in an off-season, YES Network interview. He just didn’t get into the whole psychology thing in the interview; bummer.

That means it is time to discuss the Judge.