Read the sentence below and answer the question that follows.

Joey had been winding up to pitch when Gramps called for a time out.

Which tense is the underlined verb phrase?

A. past perfect progressive

B. simple past

C. present perfect

D. future progressive

Past Perfect Progressive

Explanation:

Although there is no underlined phrase in this text, the only verb phrase is "had been winding up".

Past perfect continuous tense or past perfect progressive is a tense that shows an action started in the past and continued until another time in the past.

Its structure is as follows: subject plus had been plus present participle of verb (verb + ing).

So, "had been winding up" is a past perfect progressive tense.