(This is a sponsored post, and you'll be seeing this ad once a week for the next several weeks, but unlike previous sponsored posts, the content is pretty much entirely up to me so I'm going to make these worthwhile.)
In the second of three much-anticipated starts in the series, Michael Pineda gets to make his Major League debut tonight against a team with a 1.108 OPS through four games. Pineda had himself an excellent spring that got him onto the roster, but only now will we truly get to see how he handles himself against big league opponents when the pressure is on.
I'm curious to see how much you expect of him in his first-ever start, so I'm throwing up a poll that's basically identical to the Erik Bedard poll we ran yesterday. Obviously, the descriptions are subjective, but I think this is better than asking if you think he'll allow three runs in five innings, or four runs in four innings, or four runs in 4.2 innings, or six runs in three innings, and so on. There are a lot of mathematical possibilities. Subjective descriptions suit us just fine.
Working in Pineda's favor is that I think most of us are pretty confident in his ability to pitch to righties. With the fastball, the slider, and the location, he has the weapons to get the job done, and I expect Texas' lineup to contain six right-handed bats.
Working against Pineda, though, is that Josh Hamilton is among the lefties, and that some of the righties are really good. Throw in the fact that this is his debut, and that he's making it in Texas, and it isn't hard to imagine how he could hit some bumps in the road.
A lot of eyes are going to be following along tonight. How do you feel about Pineda's chances?