Over the course of his major league career, Orioles right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez's struggles have been rooted in command issues. When that unconventional delivery gets out of whack, he can have trouble finding the strike zone. That's no secret.
We saw that back in 2014, when Jimenez led the American League in walks for most of the season until he was relegated to the bullpen. Jimenez averaged a career-high 5.5 walks per nine innings that season.
Jimenez has battled his control this season as well. He's averaging 5.0 walks per nine innings, but in assessing Jimenez's most recent performance, a one-third-of-an-inning disaster in Toronto on Sunday that was the shortest start of Jimenez's career, Orioles manager Buck Showalter said the quality of Jimenez's stuff hasn't been there as well.
And some disturbing numbers point out that Jimenez is not only missing the plate, but when he doesn't, opposing hitters are hitting it.
Jimenez has a variety of pitches – working mostly off a four-seam fastball, sinker, split-finger fastball and slider -- but they all work off the effectiveness of his sinker, which he throws by far more than any other pitch (44.06 percent of the time this season). If he can't get hitters out with his sinker and has to rely more on his off-speed stuff, it's already a recipe for a rough outing.
This season, opposing hitters are batting .378 against Jimenez's sinker, the highest average among his four main pitches. By comparison, he allowed a .285 average on the sinker last year, and a .249 average in 2014. As we know, Jimenez struggled in each of those two years as well, but still saw much better success using his sinker -- a sign that his problems had more to do with mechanics and command than quality of stuff.
On Sunday, Jimenez faced just seven batters, and allowed six hits, before he was yanked after the Orioles fell behind, 5-0. Out of the six hits he allowed, four of them -- two doubles and two singles -- came on sinkers.
Jimenez's split-fingered fastball, which is probably his second-most effective pitch and one he uses 18.36 percent of the time, is also seeing declining results. Two years ago, opposing hitters batted just .175 against the split-fingered fastball. That average went up to .224 last year and to .266 this season.
Taking those numbers a little further, Jimenez is allowing a hard contact percentage of 33.2 percent this season, up from 27 percent last year and his career mark of 26.4 percent. Hard contact percentage shouldn't be confused with StatCast's exit velocity stat. Contact percentages are determined mainly using data on a batted ball's hang time, location and general trajectory. But ultimately it says that opponents are hitting the ball harder off Jimenez more regularly, as we saw when he allowed four doubles in the first inning Sunday.
As ugly as it has been to watch Jimenez pitch this season, it has to be immensely frustrating for him as well, realizing that he hasn't been able to get hitters out with the pitches he has used his entire career.
eencina@baltsun.com
twitter.com/EddieInTheYard