I like to spend a lot of time thinking about Michael Pineda's statistics, because Michael Pineda's statistics are more appealing than a lot of the other things about which I could think. Sometimes I'll stick with his surface numbers. So many strikeouts! Such an ERA! Other times I'll go a little more in-depth. The low contact! The frequency of getting ahead in the count! There are plenty of numbers to pick from, and most of them are super.
Late last night, for whatever reason, I found myself wondering about Michael Pineda's in-game adjustments. I was curious how he changes his approach as the game goes on, if he changes it at all. This information isn't so readily available, but PITCHfx has it all if you know where to find it, so without further words, here's Michael Pineda's pitch information the first time he goes through a lineup, and Michael Pineda's pitch information all subsequent times he goes through a lineup.
First Time Through
| Pitch | Frequency | Contact |
| Fastball | 67% | 75% |
| Slider | 26% | 59% |
| Changeup | 7% | 86% |
68% overall strikes.
Subsequent Times Through
| Pitch | Frequency | Contact |
| Fastball | 59% | 81% |
| Slider | 35% | 64% |
| Changeup | 6% | 85% |
73% overall strikes.
Pineda has shown some of that establish-the-fastball mentality early on, but it hasn't been extreme, and you can't argue with the results. After batters have seen him once, he has then shifted more heavily to the slider and seemingly made an effort to hang more in the strike zone. His fastball and slider contact rates have increased a little bit, but you expect them to increase over the course of a game, and this might be a consequence of Pineda trying to pitch more in the zone to get more efficient outs. I don't know if it's true but what I like to believe is that Pineda comes out and establishes his potential to dominate, then deliberately settles into a more efficient routine so as to make it deeper into the game.
So there you go. Nothing illuminating or profound. Just data to satiate my curiosity, and perhaps some of yours. I'll be interested in re-visiting this later in the summer, when we're working with bigger samples.