Tuesday, August 21, 2012

How much did Yankee Michael Pineda need to drink to have a .128 blood alcohol level?

Here's yet another reason to hate the Jesus Montero/Michael Pineda trade -- Pineda's DWI arrest Monday in Tampa.

According to a police report that the New York Post saw, Pineda's SUV's headlights were turned off and he was driving at "a high rate of speed and weaving from side to side, crossing the lane markers, failing to maintain [a] single lane of travel." The officer said that Pineda had "a slow/lethargic mannerism and appeared to be intoxicated,” with a "fixed gaze" and "bloodshot, watery & glassy” eyes.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the guy the Yankees received in exchange for giving up their best prospect! Great move, Cashman! Glad you checked out this guy's character so well!

Pineda had a blood alcohol level of .128, and then a level of .125 on the second test. Yet I have already seen apologists in Yankeeland who claim that he could have gotten that BAC reading on just three drinks. Yeah, if he were a 100-pound female! But he's not. He's a 265-pound man (at least he's listed at that; he could be even bigger!)

So I did some research on how much Pineda must have had to drink to "achieve" that level of boozitude. Here are the numbers from an interactive chart at the University of Washington (I filled in the relevant info and got these numbers in return, and highlighted the relevant numbers):

BLOOD ALCOHOL LEVEL GIVEN # OF DRINKS* & TIME. FOR MICHAEL, A MALE WHO WEIGHS ABOUT 265 POUNDS


D
R
I
N
K
S

HOURS

012345678910
1  0.014    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000   *A "DRINK" EQUALS 1/2 OUNCE ETHYL ALCOHOL
2  0.028    0.012    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000  
3  0.042    0.026    0.010    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000  
4  0.057    0.041    0.025    0.009    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000  
5  0.071    0.055    0.039    0.023    0.007    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000  
6  0.085    0.069    0.053    0.037    0.021    0.005    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000  
7  0.099    0.083    0.067    0.051    0.035    0.019    0.003    0.000    0.000    0.000    0.000  
8  0.113    0.097    0.081    0.065    0.049    0.033    0.017    0.001    0.000    0.000    0.000  
9  0.127    0.111    0.095    0.079    0.063    0.047    0.031    0.015    0.000    0.000    0.000  
10  0.142    0.126    0.110    0.094    0.078    0.062    0.046    0.030    0.014    0.000    0.000  
11  0.156    0.140    0.124    0.108    0.092    0.076    0.060    0.044    0.028    0.012    0.000  
12  0.170    0.154    0.138    0.122    0.106    0.090    0.074    0.058    0.042    0.026    0.010  
13  0.184    0.168    0.152    0.136    0.120    0.104    0.088    0.072    0.056    0.040    0.024  
14  0.198    0.182    0.166    0.150    0.134    0.118    0.102    0.086    0.070    0.054    0.038  
15  0.212    0.196    0.180    0.164    0.148    0.132    0.116    0.100    0.084    0.068    0.052  
16  0.226    0.210    0.194    0.178    0.162    0.146    0.130    0.114    0.098    0.082    0.066  
17  0.241    0.225    0.209    0.193    0.177    0.161    0.145    0.129    0.113    0.097    0.081  
18  0.255    0.239    0.223    0.207    0.191    0.175    0.159    0.143    0.127    0.111    0.095  
19  0.269    0.253    0.237    0.221    0.205    0.189    0.173    0.157    0.141    0.125    0.109  
20  0.283    0.267    0.251    0.235    0.219    0.203    0.187    0.171    0.155    0.139    0.123  

I highlighted the areas above that show what it would have taken for Pineda to get a .128 blood alcohol level. What it all means is that the minimum number of drinks Pineda would have had to consumed was not three but between nine and ten. And that would only be that "small" a number if he drank them all at once! If were drinking for a few hours, he would have had to have had a lot more to drink to hit that BAC number. See the highlighted figures above for a breakdown of how much he would have needed to drink.

For his part, Pineda told the New York Post that he only had “'three or four' whiskeys with cranberry juice over 'three or four' hours" on Sunday night. That is clearly not true. If he had, his BAC numbers would have been perfectly legal. (You may remember from drivers' ed that it generally takes one hour to metabolize one drink.) Instead, it's more likely that he had 12 to 14 drinks in that time frame, as seen above.

Pineda also told the Post that he was "driving very smoothly." Yeah, right. Nothing's smoother than driving at 2:30 in the morning with no headlights on!

Some have compared him to Carl Pavano hitting a garbage truck with his Porsche when I told him the news about Pineda. But in Pavano's case, he wasn't drunk; he was just a sober dumbass. Pineda's a drunken dumbass.

As for Pineda, the Yanks better take this arrest seriously, instead of continuing to do the "no comments" they've been saying. These numbers seem to show that the dude has some real issues.

Meanwhile, Jesus Montero, who has played over 40 games at catcher this year, is hitting .261/.302/.394 for the Mariners in a pitchers' park, with 12 homers and 46 RBIs. (His away numbers are .323/.357/.480 -- imagine what he would be hitting in Yankee Stadium!) And yes, he's outperforming Russell Martin, the Yankees' current catcher. Thanks, Brian!

What do you think? Tell us about it!

15 comments:

Mark the Spark said...

...But you can never have enough pitchers (of alcohol).

Uncle Mike said...

There is no excuse for what Pineda did. You're a pro athlete, hire a chauffeur.

But to rip Cashman for this, when he also brought in Eric Chavez and Ichiro Suzuki - and that's just this year? Come on. He's made more good deals than any GM since George Weiss.

Including re-signing that guy everyone thought was washed-up, overpaid, not worth it. You know... Alex Rodriguez.

Lisa Swan said...

Mike, you mean like Cashman not wanting to have Rafael Soriano on the team, and making a big stink voicing his displeasure at the introductory press conference? The very same Soriano who saved the Yankees' season after Mariano Rivera got hurt? Boy, if only the Yankees had listened to Cashman's stellar judgment on that!

Lisa Swan said...

Sure, Cashman deserves credit for his scrap heap low-risk/high-reward picks. But he certainly deserves blame for trading the franchise's future superstar catcher for an injured knucklehead who doesn't know when to say when.

Uncle Mike said...

How do we know Montero is going to be a superstar? How many "superstars" haven't panned out?

And the only reason Soriano "saved the season" is because Robertson lost his job due to injury. If he hadn't gotten hurt, he would have saved the season. Once he came back, he should have been the 9th inning pitcher. He hasn't been as effective since he became the 8th inning pitcher. You can't blame Cashman for that.

Lisa Swan said...

Mike, speaking of which, how are Brian Cashman's killer Bs doing?

At any rate, Montero has a heck of a lot more of a chance of being a superstar than Pineda does at this point.

As for this:

"And the only reason Soriano "saved the season" is because Robertson lost his job due to injury. If he hadn't gotten hurt, he would have saved the season."

Um,no. Robertson wasn't exactly impressive as a closer before he got hurt.

"Once he came back, he should have been the 9th inning pitcher. He hasn't been as effective since he became the 8th inning pitcher. You can't blame Cashman for that."

Huh? Why? Soriano has been great as a closer (and he was a career closer before he became a Yankee) but the Yanks should have given the job to David Robertson, who did not impress when he briefly had it this season, just because? Where do you get this stuff?

And what do you mean by "He hasn't been as effective since he became the 8th inning pitcher." Um, that was his job *before* Mariano Rivera got hurt. Yet you want to give a guy who you acknowledge has been less effective a better job? Why? To make Brian Cashman look better? Good grief.

Unknown said...

Here's my take on it. Pineda made a mistake, such as Chamberlain did so many years ago. Chamberlain has stayed out of trouble and wasnt terrible (until he got hurt, came back and has stunk up the place). Maybe we give Pineda some slack and see if he turns himself around and hopefully he comes back as a serviceable SP.

Cashman wasnt the guy who signed Rodriguez...right? It was Hank. And that WAS a mistake. I like Alex, but he isnt the player they thought they were getting. Jeter on the other hand...that's good Cashman! Same with Sabathia, Granderson, Swisher, Kuroda, etc. Lisa...I think we have more examples of Good Cashman, than we have Bad Cashman. But like police work...we dont hear too much about the good stuff, we hear more about the bad.

Lisa Swan said...

Sorry, Travis, thanks for writing, but I don't see how Brian Cashman gets credit for Jeter. You might as well give him credit for getting Babe Ruth.

Sure, I'll give Cashman credit for Kuroda and Swisher (although Swish was a salary and personality dump.) Give him credit for CC, but also remember that it was Cashman who put in that opt-out clause that cost the Yanks $$$. Granderson is great, but he did cost the Yanks Austin Jackson and Ian Kennedy, so it wasn't exactly a steal.

Overall, Cashman has made more bad moves than good, but the NYC media is afraid to criticize him, so he gets a pass.

As for mistakes, Joba's BAC was .13. He, too, is a big guy, which means he had to drink a lot to get that number. The Yanks overlooked Joba's DUI as a one-time mistake, and they're doing with Pineda, which is a real mistake. Having over 10 drinks in a few hours seems to be a warning sign of a real issue.

Here's an idea: How about the Yanks start taking DUIs seriously?

Anonymous said...

These guys (Jo-bob and Pineda) are just trying to be like Mickey Mantle, blown-out alcoholics. Maybe the next movie someone gets paid to make that glorifies the Yankers should be titled "Like Mick", starring Mickey Rourke (a la "Barfly") as Mantle, only instead of trying to emulate a true sports legend (Michael Jordan), these losers would be drinking themselves to death like so many Yanker "legends" (now there an oxymoron for you).

Then again, maybe Pineda doesn't really want to play for the Yankers (kudos if true), and this is his way of getting out of it.

Either way, YANKERS SUCK!!!!!!!!

Uncle Mike said...

Said the fan of the team of Darryl Strawberry (booze and cocaine), Dwight Gooden (booze and cocaine), Keith Hernandez (cocaine) and Lenny Dykstra (booze and fraud). And Mantle didn't need no Curse to win a World Series -- or 7.

Anonymous said...

The Mets played hard and partied hard. Now I'm not defending the use of cocaine or other hard drugs, but at least the Mets partied hard to celebrate their achievements and to bring glory to NYC. The Yankers use alcohol and drugs to take the edge off the realization that they are stuck playing for the most despicable, most hated, most reviled team in all of organized sports.

Why do you think Gehrig said he was the lucky person in the world? Because he didn't have to play for the Yankers anymore!

Anonymous said...

And by the way, where did Gooden and Strawberry end up after up their days with the Mets were over? The Yankers. Where they don't party with alcohol (anymore) or cocaine (anymore), but now they party with HGH, testosterone, heaping bags of money, and whatever else can be cooked-up by their D.O.P.E. (director of player enhancement). You make me sick.

And Keith Hernandez (along with Ron Darling) is now a respected and award-winning broadcaster for... (who's that)... (say it again)... the M-E-T-S, Mets Mets Mets.

Mantle didn't need a curse for his team to buy 7 trophies. No, just several large unmarked bags of money to change hands. So take your tainted trophies and stick them right up your a$$.

Uncle Mike said...

Tainted trophies? If you believe that, then you're even dumber than I thought you were, which I didn't think was even possible.

Hernandez is respected? By whom? He's a fat misogynistic egomaniacal slob who will never get into the Hall of Fame without a ticket.

And you do NOT want to point out that Strawberry and Gooden went to the Yankees, because they won MORE with the Yankees. So did Cone. So did Torre. The only @$$ here is you, Freshy.

Anonymous said...

Oh please Mikey, Gooden and Strawberry did NOT win more with the Yankers, they were just there for the ride. Everybody knows that the checkbook does all the "winning". So suck it.

Uncle Mike said...

If the checkbook does the winning, then the Mets, who (until Bernie made off with the money) had one of the highest payrolls in the game the last 30 years, should have won a lot more than 1 World Series in that span. So would the Dodgers. It's not about spending money, it's about spending it wisely. Get that through your thick skull.

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