well, that's why he pitched in here in the Dominican Winter League Baseball, which is a very hard league when a lot major leaguers plays. He pitched last year but only one start (against fausto carmona) but he then said to his team he got a fluke, and then that he was working in Indians camp in the Dominican Republic and never pitched again last year.

But he regularly pitched in here.. Coincidentally he didn't pitch last year and was his worse year of his career in the majors.

Exactly, if he can pound the strike zone a little bit more and control his pitches a little bit more, he could be nasty. The problem with him is when he miss the strike zone he misses by far..it's not even close in the majority of the time. Kind of Wild. But i think he could be a quality pitched for us, and i really, really liked his velocity today. Even his start wasn't great, at least i feel better about that velocity.

I'm aware of the Winter league stuff. But one game is nothing.

I want to wait too, because it's too early, and Ubaldo was so inconsistent last year, but in terms of velocity i like what i saw today.I Believe he can be a good pitcher for us, and If he can control his pitches, he can be the same all over again. But we have to wait, that's for sure.

Even his start wasn't great (not only for his 4 runs, but for his only 5 innings for a team who needed a break for their bullpen) at least i was happy about the velocity.

didn't know that. Let's see his next start and see if he can hit 95-96 again.

His next start will be against Oakland, so I wouldn't judge anything good he does that day. There offense is hilariously bad. I'd argue that our first three games offense showed more promise than they have shown from any single game. Wait till he pitches again against KC or Angels whichever comes first. Both have great offenses.

On another note, Drew Pomeranz goes 4.1 IP , 9 H, 5 ER ,2 BB, 3 K in a loss to Arizona .

I was watching that game just sitting back with a beer laughing. He wasn't doing very well. Their park is definitely not a pitchers park, but still. We basically traded Two DUIs with unproven talent for a sober pitcher that seems to have Cy Young stuff on occasion with potential to get back to full form. And quite honestly I look forward to the days Jimenez pitches. Whether he is on or not, he is one of the most fun pitchers to watch in all of baseball because you have no idea what is coming next. He might throw a 12-6 curve with huge movement in for a strike, or he might throw a fastball 15 feet away from the plate. Ubaldo definitely gives a show.

Also nice to see a second starter finally get a W. Jimenez should have 2 wins and Masterson should easily have at least 1. Gomez should have 1 also, but that went to Asencio.

Yeah I saw that one. Still Pomeranz is getting his wrinkles out having never really pitched in the majors before. It'll be interesting to see how Ubaldo and Pomeranz compare statwise by the end of the season. Then there's always Alex White.

I hated the trade at the time it happened thinking Colorado dumped a player with issues onto us, but I'd definitely welcome a pleasant surprise!

If Ubaldo does underwhelm, it will be more great evidence of the incompetence of Shapiro & Co. cause anyone could have predicted him being subpar simply by checking out his stats on Fangraphs and reading the Rockies message boards. If my limited scout job based on 2 freely available online sources ends up being better than what a Major League ball club is able to produce, then I hope some people get fired.

I don't think the Rockies message board are exactly a source... look at this board it blows up whenever one thing goes wrong. People like to multiply the negatives as an excuse for why they are losing. Look St Derek Lowe. The Braves fans loved that move and wanted him gone just because he had a bad september. Lowe so far for us has two great outings, and has 2 wins.

Pomeranz is still young and has many chances to succeed. I have an interesting story to share with you all.

Last month, I was on vacation. Myself and my friends ran into some guys from Tennessee. Soon enough we were discussing the upcoming baseball season and one of the Tennessee guys says something along the lines of...

"You heard of Drew Pomeranz (who's also from Tennessee)? Him and his brother (Stuart - a minor league pitcher for Baltimore) were 'idiots' (in high school)."

He want on to talk about parties they were at and how Drew took new truck 'muddin' and it ended up getting stuck and buried in the mud and lost forever.

Now I know, it's high school. We all did dumb stuff when we were younger. And it's possible that he has matured. I know, I have no authentic way to verify this story, but I promise you all this is what those Tennessee guys told me.

Of course, Pomeranz may very well turn out to be a solid pitcher.

I really think White ends up in the bullpen. He has already dealt with a tough injury, one that derailed Adam Miller's career, and I just don't think he has the stuff to be a top of the rotation starter like many pegged him to be when he was coming up through our system. He probably could have been a good #3 or maybe #2 here in Cleveland, but if you want to be successful in Colorado you have to miss a ton of bats, and White just doesn't seem to do that when he's a starter.

Pomeranz, on the other hand, I think will be fine. I think he would have been an absolute stud had he stayed in a more pitcher-friendly park like Cleveland, so he'll probably be a guy that underperforms his true talent when you look at his ERA. Still though, he misses bats and he has dominating stuff. I think he'll be their ace for a while, though I don't think they'll ever see the kind of performance that Jimenez gave them from 08-10.

I agree 100%. The one Royals relief pitcher was throwing arround 100-101 mph and I didn't believe that for one minute. In my opinion the radar guns are totally over-rated at baseball games. Pitching is more about location and movement than how fast a pitch is.

Before we throw Ubaldo to the trash heap let's remember he had not pitched for 9 days prior to yesterday with the suspension, off days and the rain out. His command was good the first game, bad yesterday with the extended layoff. Let's see how he does when he is taking the ball every 5th day.

I dont know, that dude was blowing the fastball past Santana who usually kills fastballs. Even if it was a hot gun, I'd still think he's around 100.

I was watching the game yesterday before I had to leave on STO and I never saw a Jimenez pitch at 95-96 mph. I saw a lot of pitches at 91-92-93 mph and a lot of sliders or changeups at 82-83-84 mph. Maybe I am the one who is wrong but I only watched into the top of the 4th inning. The last thing I saw was Hafner's homerun. Our son and daughter were in the dinner theater at the high school yesterday afternoon.

His velocity was the highest I have seen since he came to the Indians which is good. Getting to 100 pitches by the 5th inning though is not good and he needs to work on his control. It won't help as much if he can't go out there and pitch 7 innings because all that does is bring the bullpen in too early. Bottom line, throw strikes and at least be around the plate not wide and in the dirt as much and he will be fine.

I missed most of the early parts of the game, started watching around the 4th inning. Ubaldo was around 100 pitches entering the 5th, and the entire 5th inning he was hitting 95 with ease, at least according to STO. And I believe I saw one or two 96's as well. Maybe he got stronger as the game went on. I believe the 5th was his quickest inning of the game.

Yeah, I remember thinking how maybe he should just pitch 100 pitches on top of his warm up pitches before the game every time.

As its already been stated many times, still too early to evaluate the trade. BTW , Jimenez and Pomeranz had almost identical pitching-stat lines sunday but Ubaldo was backed by 13 runs .