Game 152: Royals 5, Indians 3

Boxscore

Brooks Baseball PItchFX - Ubaldo Jimenez

Losing at the rate at which the Indians are losing has a numbing effect; this type of loss in the middle of a successful season would probably make me angrier. But it's one bad loss among a sea of bad losses, and it's hard to contrast them when there isn't anything to contrast them against.

Ubaldo Jimenez did his thing again, which is throw a lot of pitches (94) in not very many innings (4.1), giving up runs in the first inning, and leaving the game after loading the bases with one out. Not very conducive for the team winning the game, right?

This soul-sucking season has many causes, but Jimenez's awfulness is at the top of the list. I dare anyone to find a player who was both acquired so dearly and had performed so poorly. The Bartolo Colon trade has been justifiably held up as one of the best trades in Indians history, but at least Montreal got a good half-season from Colon before trading him to Chicago. Now I'm not comparing the prospects in the two trades (way too early to do that for the Jimenez trade), but if you're going to give up two of the best prospects in your organization, you need to at least expect that the veteran return outperforms the prospects traded for him in the short-term. Alex White/Drew Pomeranz have both struggled in their first full seasons in Colorado, but both has a higher ERA+ than Jimenez.

The Indians offense shouldn't escape vitriol either; they managed two runs despite getting eight hits off Royals starter Will Smith, who came into the contest with a 5.08 ERA (82 ERA+) went seven innings and struck out five. The Indians got the tying run on in the ninth, at least for a couple seconds; Shin-Soo Choo hit a single into right field and tried to stretch it into a double but he was thrown out at second by Jeff Francoeur.

Source: FanGraphs