Sunday, October 03, 2010

Really Bummed About Ubaldo Jiminez

You Rockies had one last chance to get Ubaldo Jiminez his 20th victory. All you had to do was score a run. That's it. Just a run. But you couldn't even do that. Why wasn't CarGo in the line up? Yeah, he is banged up, but his is Ubaldo. He's pitched his heart out all season. Yeah, he has nineteen wins. He finished with an impressive record. But we are a fandom of milestones. We love 20-win pitchers. Jiminez had fifteen wins by the All Star break. He was the only thing keeping your faint hopes alive when you got off to your typical crappy start this season. But when he needed you, you let him down.

Geez, Louise, Rockies. You left eleven men on base. You had your chances. The Cardinals even made two errors to help you. You couldn't score a single run off a pitcher with an ERA over 6. Ubaldo was magnificent. He pitched eight innings, giving up only three hits and two walks. He struck out ten. What more could you ask for? His performance couldn't get you inspired enough to go get him a run or two? How disappointing. But what else is new, right?

This is what you scored for him in his last eight losses and no decisions: 2, 0, 1, 2, 1, 1, 4, 1, 0. That's twelve runs in those eight games. 1.33 runs per game. Nice. Jiminez could have won 24 or 25 games with just four or five of those starts having some run support. It's a crying shame and Jiminez deserved better.

Look, you made a good run in September. You almost got back to the top. But you fell apart and along with falling apart, you let one of the great pitching performances of the season look like less than it was. It's disappointing and this Fan is really bummed.

1 comment:

Josh Borenstein said...

Definitely deserved that elusive 20th win with this start. Eight shutout innings and 10 Ks will usually get the job done.

People will talk about his disappointing 2nd half, and it'll be misleading. In 15 starts since the All Star Break, he was 4-7 with a 3.80 ERA and 1.30 WHIP with a K/9 higher than 9.