Baltimore Orioles: Did Ubaldo Jimenez set himself straight?

Ubaldo Jimenez tossed three scoreless innings for the Baltimore Orioles yesterday.

I suspect that Baltimore Orioles fans are breathing a bit easier this morning after seeing what Ubaldo Jimenez did yesterday against Minnesota. In the 3-0 Birds’ loss, Jimenez looked leaps and bounds better than he did in last week’s start. Jimenez’s line: 3 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 K.

I suspect however that many fans are still grousing over the fact that the O’s still haven’t won a game. However I would urge patience on that front. Needless to say however, that’s another story for another column. At the end of the day, Jimenez’s outing left the Orioles in much better shape than did his last game.

So the question to fans now is whether or not people feel that Jimenez has righted himself or not…? Many naysayers are going to argue that it was a great effort, but it was only one game. And they’re absolutely right…just like last week’s lackluster outing was only one.

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After the game, Jimenez indicated that he felt different in this start than he did last week (quote courtesy of Roch Kubatko of MASNsports):

"I had a better command of the fastball and the breaking ball,” he said. “We kept doing what we were doing last time, which was throwing the curve and the changeup and it was good. I was able to command it."

Jimenez went on to say that he similarly rebounded from a poor start at the very beginning of spring training last season. At the end of the day, this neither proves nor disproves that Jimenez is on the right track in 2016. However as bad of a sign that last week’s game was for Jimenez, this week’s was certainly a good sign.

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The Orioles will remain in Sarasota this afternoon as the Boston Red Sox come to Ed Smith Stadium for the first time. Again in terms of wins and losses, keep in mind that this was only the third game in which the Orioles had their prospective starting team in the lineup. That does often make a difference, and also keep in mind that the “baby Birds” nearly came back against Boston on Sunday afternoon.

Next: Baltimore Orioles: Ryan Flaherty an offensive bright spot

T.J. McFarland started feeling some elbow discomfort in the past few days, and is being evaluated. The O’s also think that Brian Matusz will be rejoining the team “sooner rather than later.” It’s unclear what exactly that means, however they aren’t anticipating a DL stint at this time.