MIAMI - The question couldn't help but make Matt Treanor laugh.
"Does your hand hurt when Matt Lindstrom throws 100 mph?" one of the pre-teen campers asked the Marlins' catcher during Tuesday's guest appearance at the Bucky Dent Baseball School in Delray Beach, Fla.
Treanor smiled and said, "Only a little bit more than when he throws 98 (mph)."
About 12 hours later, Lindstrom - the Flamethrowin' Idahoan - was packing up his locker and saying goodbye (for now) to his buddies in the Marlins' struggling bullpen.
See, not even a triple-digit heater can insulate a potential closer from a mid-year demotion to Triple-A Albuquerque.
Not when his six June appearances have produced a ghastly 16.62 ERA and his manager no longer trusted him in anything beyond a mop-up spot.
Not when his seasonal ERA climbs from 2.70 to 5.18 in a span of three weeks.
"I don't know what happened," he said by phone Wednesday afternoon. "Well, some stuff happened, and I kind of got out of my rhythm and I got sent down. It was a chain of events."
Thing is, Lindstrom was about as dominant as they come in May, when he posted a 0.84 ERA in 12 outings. The highlight might have come on May 20, when he rolled through the heart of the Diamondbacks' lineup.
The next day in the Arizona clubhouse, Justin Upton was still marveling at the little-known reliever who overpowered him with a couple of 100-mph fastballs, only to come back with an 85-mph breaking ball for called strike three.
Even Wednesday, Marlins pitching coach Mark Wiley was saying, "There's not a better arm in baseball than this guy."
So how did he get this way?
Sometime in late May, Lindstrom's on-again, off-again back spasms returned, and that's where the problems really started. The hop was still on the fastball, but maybe it straightened out ever so slightly.
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