Q: What gives you a mechanical advantage?

A: I've heard the rumors. I know what people are saying. I just want to set the record straight.

My sudden improvement this season, which has resulted in 11 consecutive perfect games, over 300 strike outs before the all-star break and a 15-0 record, has been the result of a new off-season workout regiment and a few tweaks to my mechanics. I throw the ball from a greater angle now, which gives my fastball greater velocity and more movement. That is my mechanical advantage. That an only that. New mechanics. Nothing else.

Despite what you may have heard, I didn't travel to the Philippines in the off-season and have my right arm surgically replaced with the arm of a space robot. That's simply ridiculous.

Sure, a lot of people might find it odd that, in one season, I went from a career journeyman, whose fastball topped out at 87, to a flamethrowing strikeout artist whose fastball now reaches speeds in excess of 152 miles per hour. But there's no secret. There's no magic behind it. There's no futuristic limb found in the wreckage of a meteor, that has been attached to my arm, covered with a skin like substance, and able to pass as human. It's all a matter of hard work and dedication. Sorry to disappoint you.

Sometimes people get better. Sometimes people figure themselves out. In 1919, Ruth hit 29 home runs, an all time single season record. The next year he hit 54. No one asked how he could do such a thing. No one accused him of using performance enhancing drugs. No one put him under the microscope, and had him tailed at all hours, hoping to get a glimpse of his beautiful, shimmering alien technology. No one sent reporters and detectives to the Philippines to interview doctors and scientists, only to find that they had all mysteriously vanished or been the victims of bizarre moped accidents. They just bought tickets, watched him hit the ball out of the park and marveled at the triumph of the human spirit. The human spirit. Not the alien robot spirit. The human spirit.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go see the trainer. I think I blew a gasket in the 9th.

That's a metaphor. Obviously,