By Larry LaRue
The News Tribune
PEORIA, Ariz. – Most everyone remembers the photograph, if not the moment – rookie Joel Pineiro walking off the mound last year after catching a third-out line drive.
“Wow” he was saying, and given how fast Mike Sweeney’s laser beam reached Pineiro’s mitt, no one accused him of showboating.
“It hurt,” Pineiro recalls, “and I just reacted. It really was a ‘Wow!’ kind of thing.”
Not surprisingly, when the 23-year-old Pineiro went home to Puerto Rico after the postseason last year, it was not his six major league wins his friends wanted to talk about. Nor was it his 2.03 earned run average.
It was that play – and that candid response to it.
“I’d be playing golf with my friends and every time someone hit the ball well, everyone would be going ‘Wow!’ the way I had,” Pineiro said, laughing.
“My family, my friends, everyone had the video of that play. Everyone had a picture of it.”
This spring, Pineiro is a bit of a known quantity. Certainly other major league teams knew him this winter, with more than a half dozen of them coming after Pineiro in trade talks.
A starter most of his minor league career, last year the Rainers put him in the bullpen because that’s where they thought the big club might need help.
“I worked out of the pen for eight appearances in Tacoma, then got called up in July and made three more up here,” Pineiro said. “Then I was a starter again. It’s what I wanted to do, but I couldn’t go very deep into games for awhile.”
Manager Lou Piniella and pitching coach Bryan Price are curious to see how Pineiro’s arm reacts to starting this spring, to see whether they can build up his endurance.
At 6-foot-1, 180 pounds, Pineiro is hardly a beast on the mound. Piniella loved his work in the bullpen, where he was 1-0 with an 0.63 ERA last year in Seattle.
“We’re going to stretch him out and let him compete for that fifth spot in the rotation,” Piniella said, “but anywhere he goes, however we use him, he’s going to help us.”
Pineiro doesn’t believe the job is his, or that a spot on the 25-man opening-night roster is yet, either.
“I showed them last spring I could pitch, but when the plane left here for Seattle, I wasn’t on it,” he said. “I’ve heard that’s a pretty cool flight, Phoenix to Seattle and the big leagues. I want to make it this year.
“I’d love to start, but if they need me in the bullpen, I’ll do my job there. I just want to be on that plane when it leaves Phoenix.”
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