On January 27th, MLB.com's Doug Miller interviewed the M's new pitching coach, Rafael Chaves. One of the interesting things Chaves mentioned was this...

"We need to improve how we pitch on the road compared to how we pitch at home. Everyone says Safeco Field is a pitcher-friendly ballpark, but I'm a big fan of making quality pitches at home and on the road, so it won't make a difference. They key is getting ground balls. I always say there isn't a ground ball that ever got over the fence. So if we make guys hit the ball on the ground, with the defensive infield we have, we should get a lot of outs."

That is certainly good to hear. Today, Miller mentioned this in his weekly Mailbag feature...

"As far as major comebacks go, keep an eye on starter Joel Pineiro. If he stays healthy this spring, he'll be miles ahead of where he was when the 2005 season started. He's still got upside and could add a new dimension with a refined sinker." (Emphasis added)

Last year, Joel's 1.29 was in the middle of the pack in terms of qualified pitchers' GB/FB ratio. Will the new sinker help Joel get more groundballs? We'll have to wait and see, but I'm happy to hear that, presumably, Chaves is trying to get more groundballs out of our staff.