Behind the Mound: Is Ubaldo Jimenez Struggling?

As the second half of the 2010 MLB season begins, Ubaldo Jimenez remains a major story. He has a 15-1 record, had an ERA under 1.00 at the end of May, and was pretty much handed the Cy Young Award, and even the MVP Award, by some.

Yet despite this, and despite people still considering him the best pitcher in the league, he has not pitched well of late.

His stats were so good to begin with that his recent struggles have fallen under the radar.

You may be thinking, "How can you possibly be saying Ubaldo is pitching bad? He has 15 wins and a 2.38 ERA. Anybody would want those stats."

You are right, those are very impressive numbers, but if you look at the whole picture, then you see trouble in Rockies paradise.

In his last eight starts, he has the following stat line: 4.85 ERA, 23 BB, 48 K, 52 IP, and in spite of these rather average stats, a 5-0 record. The match-ups against the Giants and Marlins should have been losses, but the Rockies scored eight runs to cancel out Jimenez's seven and six earned runs, respectively.

A 4.85 ERA is not terrible, but it's a far cry from the dominant Ubaldo we saw in the first two months. Still, here are three stats that actually concern me:

First, he is fifth in the National League with 49 walks.

Yes, he allows very few hits, but allowing that many walks is not any better.

Second, in three no-decisions, he has an ERA of 9.00. In other words, those three no decisions could have just as easily been losses, and while a 15-4 record is still impressive, it's slightly less so noting that.

Third, many of his stats have rebounded from his poor showing in June to being good again in July. His WHIP is down to 1.1, his batting average against is .206 in July, and his BABIP is down as well.

Despite this, his ERA went from 4.41 in June to 5.59 in July. If he has righted is stuff as the stats would indicate, he should be back to racking up the wins.

To note one more thing, in his last game versus the Marlins, he allowed four earned runs in 5.1 innings. He has been lights out on the road all season, and this was his first bad outing outside of Coors Field.

His ERA was naturally going to inflate at home, but if he struggles on the road, then it's not going to get better.

He's still in the top three or four pitchers in baseball this year, there's no question about that. But I think we can see that he's fallen from the pedestal that he was placed on.

That's not bad necessarily, it was going to happen eventually. Perhaps now we can just watch him pitch instead of pushing him to hit 25 or 30 wins.

That being said, 25 might still happen if the Rockies keep scoring for him. He averages 5.77 runs in support of his pitching, which is a very good number, definitely above average.

If he pitches decently the rest of the year, even if he only pitches as good as he did in June, with those numbers, it is pretty much guaranteed that he'll reach 20 wins.

It doesn't help that Josh Johnson has lowered his ERA to 1.62 and continues to make a case to usurp the lead for the Cy Young Award from Jimenez.

Nonetheless, one can only hope that Jimenez is starting to turn the corner and revert to his April and May self, as it would make for an amazing story throughout the rest of the season.