Why Ubaldo's Struggles Shouldn't Surprise Us

                      
First published  Ubaldo's Struggles Shouldn't Surprise Us on Technorati.
 


  Ubaldo Jimenez 's struggles have been a bit of a mystery to the Colorado Rockies. Just one year after going 19-8 with a impressive 2.88 ERA and holding opponent's to a cool .209 AVG, Jimenez has struggled thus far. Going 0-2 with a sky high ERA of 5.88 and teams hitting .222 off of him, he has failed to be the No.1 starter he showed he was capable of being last year. Why you might ask, is Ulbado having so much trouble this year?


  Last year he looked like one of the most dominating pitchers around. Well maybe it's the teams hes faced this year. Maybe they have been solid teams and have been able to wear him down. That would explain the high ERA right? Actually no. To this point he has faced Average teams in Arizona and Florida and sub-par teams with San Francisco and Pittsburgh, and had very poor starts, failing to reach past the 6th inning in all 4 starts so far this year. Looking at these teams stats for this year, doesn't really help Jimenez's case either.


  In his first game of the year, Ulbaldo faced the Arizona Diamondbacks who sit 4th in their division with a 12-15 record. And searching into the teams offensive numbers we see that any "ace" should have handled this team just fine. The D-Backs have the 17th best AVG in the Majors, are 18th in Walks, 17th in OBP which are fairly average numbers. But if you want to be a Major League star, you have to beat the average teams consistently. Ulbaldo had a terrible time in his opening start, he gave up 7 hits along with 6 runs (5 earned), 2 HR's,1 walk and hitting 1 batter while recording just one KO after throwing 98 pitches over 6 innings on his way to a no decision. Now while he did get hindered by a right thumb injury, he stayed in the game and was unable to produce.


  After getting off the disabled list, Jimenez looked to bounce back against the San Francisco Giants who are 13-15 just .5 games ahead of the Diamondbacks making them 3rd in the NL West. Sure, their the defending World Series champions, winning the coveted trophy in 2010, but they definitely are not playing like it in '11. The Giants have the 7th worst AVG in Major League Baseball, strikeout the 12th most of any team and get the fewest walk, 29th in the league are 29th in OBP and grounding into 25 double plays, good for 6th worst in the league. Not really, championship caliber stuff. Actually not even close. So how did Jimenez do against them? Well shortly after giving up 6 hits 4 runs (all earned), gave up a homer, 2 walks, and hitting another batter he was pulled before the 6th inning after he threw 92 pitches, he was on the hook for loss when he left, and his team was unable to recover. Although on the plus side he did SO 6.

  Next on the schedule was Florida, who is doing very well and is holding there own against the Phillies in the NL East. Right now brandishing a record 18-9 sitting tied for 1st in the division, we would expect them to give Ulbaldo some trouble. But then we see how the Marlins are offensively and how Hanley Ramirez is hardly producing the way Florida needs, you'll notice that the Jimenez of last year would have kept this team in check. They have the 13th best AVG, are 18th in SO have the 14th most walks and are 11th in OBP. Definitely a good team, but an ace should be able to keep his team in the game against the Marlins. While Jimenez only gave up the one hit which was a home run, he walked 4 batters, 1 HBP, giving up 3 earned runs while recording7 SO over just 5 IP. This game he threw 96 pitches and earned a no decision.


  In his most recent start at home against Pittsburgh, who everyone knows is a well below average team, Ubaldo recorded his shortest start of the year and one very embarrassing outing at that. Pittsburgh sits third in their division enjoying a "successful" season thus far by their standards, going 14-15 to this point, and with the stats they have posted they are lucky to have even that record. The Pirates have the 26th worst AVG in the MLB, strikeout the 2nd most in the Majors and have grounded into a double play 31 times, good for 5th worst in the league. Any No.1 pitcher should have had a field day with this team hitting the way they do. One of the few bright spots for the Pirates is they are sitting 7th in the league for drawing walks, which they showed why in this game. They tagged Jimenez for 4 walks, 6 hits, 4 earned, one IBB, over 4 innings of work and throwing a total of 88 pitches getting hit with a loss in this game.
But is this really anything we shouldn't expect from him? Here's some stats from the past 4 years:


-0-2 with 7.20 ERA, .253 AVG in Apr'11
-5-0,.79 ERA, .186 AVG in Apr'10 Tot; 19-8 2.88 ERA, .209 AVG
-1-3,7.58 ERA, .303 AVG in Apr'09 Tot; 15-12 3.47 ERA, .229 AVG
-1-2, 5.60 ERA,.291 AVG in Apr'08 Tot; 12-12 3.99 ERA, .245 AVG


  As you can see this isn't the first time Ubaldo has had a poor start to the season. So a case can be made that he just has a slow start. Now if you go back to last year, yes there is the very impressive 14-1 record with 1.83 ERA for the months of April, May and June. Lets look at the rest of the season though. For the months of July, August, September and October he went an average 5-7 with a 3.99 ERA, hardly the pitcher he was in the first three months and not what I would call an ace. And Colorado definitely needed Ulbaldo to be the ace of that staff, having nobody else win more than 10 games for them and Houston Street unable to be healthy the whole year, resulting in a disappointing 9 GB of the division lead and 8 back of the wild card. In 2009 he went 15-12 3.47 ERA and .229 AVG while helping the Rockies to a wild card birth in the postseason but he also had Jason Marquis (15-13, 4.04 ERA and Jorge De La Rosa (16-9, 4.33 ERA) and Houston Street (35 of 37 SV, 3.06 ERA) to help carry the workload.


  So the bottom line is, that while Ulbado Jimenez has the tools and stuff to be a great pitcher, he doesn't have the accuracy and throws to many pitches to be effective enough on a regular basis. Here is an interesting stat, that some may or may not put much stock in to. The following is the strikes to pitches ratio.


2011: 374-221 = 59%
2010: 3600-2176 = 60%
2009: 3592-2197 = 61%
2008: 3366-2030 = 60%
2007: 1348-821 = 61%
2006: 112-68 = 60%
Total: 12392-7513 = 60%


  As shown by that chart Ulbado is on the low end of accuracy, he throws to many balls and that causes his pitch count to sky rocket. Not only that, when you throw as many 2-2, 3-1, 3-2 counts as Jimenez does, that means that hitters get used to seeing your pitches, they become accustomed to your delivery, pick up trends, because let's face it; they are big league hitters. That's what their paid to do. Throwing so many pitches obviously also tires you out, making you less effective going into the later parts of games. That in turn, affects the bullpen and has a ripple effect on the rest of the team. That's why sold starting pitching is crucial to a teams success. Don't you think the Phillies having Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels is huge reason to why they have so much success? This is a major part of Jimenez's struggles this year, through out his career and why I believe he will not become the ace the Rockies need, although he would be a terrific No. 2 starter for a lot of teams. When Ubaldo or any pitcher for that matter is at his best he is attacking the hitters going after him and throwing lots of strikes forcing opposing hitters to make contact.






     **All Stats courtesy of www.MLB.com**