Narrative Meanderings in Sports: Seattle Mariners’ Michael Pineda, By Noah Nacho

Seattle rookie pitcher Michael Pineda is young and talented. He is the most exciting thing about the hapless Mariners in 2011. More than Ichiro, more even than King Felix, he is the reason to turn on your TV in the post My-Oh-My era. He reminds you of a puppy – the feet too big, the ears too floppy, the coordination not-quite-there yet, but adorable and fresh, promising power and grace. In eight starts, Pineda is 5-2, with a 2.45 ERA and 52 strikeouts in 51 innings pitched. He is raw, and opposing hitters don’t know what to expect.

There are no guarantees. This could be the pinnacle for Michael Pineda. But imagining a glorious future is one of sport’s greatest joys. The young players, the ones we imagine aren’t hardened by professionalism and entitlement (as illusory as those concepts are, really)–we forgive them their mistakes more easily. Like the puppy peeing on the carpet, raw enthusiasm makes up for their shortcomings, augmented by potential.

Michael Pineda is tall. Many pitchers are that, of course, but Pineda’s youth, his fresh face, feels out of place on his 6’7″ frame. He looks like the little leaguer whose age you question, the 14 year old with the body of someone 17, pitching to those who look 11. His hat is a little crooked, but not in a cool way (even though he likely means it that way), his uniform massive and ill-fitting.

Pineda’s off the field narrative probably involves video games and his mother’s cooking, but I like to imagine his mornings filled with outdoor activities and random interactions with Seattle-ites, the Spanish-speaking Pineda getting by with stilted English and warm smiles. Perhaps he befriends Tim Lincecum in the off season, and the two them roam about in flannel shirts, bowling and going to trivia nights, a baseball/hipster odd couple. Perhaps he and King Felix have a recording studio, rapping the nights away, cutting Reggaeton singles to play in the clubhouse.

Whatever the story, Michael Pineda is a character full of possibility, an enormous talent with a likable mien–someone on whom it is easy to map our desires. The talented athlete whose perceived innocence makes him seem more human, fleeting as that may be, rather than a celebrity. The star who is not yet awe-some, but *awesome*.

Who will you become, Michael Pineda? Who knows. But I like your narrative possibilities.

– Noah Nacho

.

.

Michael Pineda, Top 50 Prospect

.