GLENDALE, Ariz. – Through his struggles in the early days of the spring, Cleveland right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez remained calm.
The Indians, however, were uneasy.
Acquired by Cleveland from Colorado for former first-round draft picks Drew Pomeranz and Alex White at the trade deadline last July with the hope he would give the Indians a pennant-race boost, Jimenez struggled instead.
There was no sign of improvement in his first four spring appearances, prompting manager Manny Acta to declare, "it's time to get it in gear."
Point made.
Jimenez gave the Indians a second consecutive reason for hope with a five-inning effort in the Indians' 7-1 exhibition loss to the Chicago White Sox at Camelback Ranch on Tuesday afternoon.
Dominating? Nope.
Encouraging? Yep.
Jimenez allowed three runs in five innings, but only two were earned. He gave up seven hits, didn't walk a batter and struck out three. It did, however, take 90 pitches to get the 15 outs. That came five days after he allowed one run in four innings of a 76-pitch, four-hit, one-walk, four-strikeout effort against Cincinnati.
"It's a big relief for me," Acta said. "I haven't had the benefit of seeing the guy like some of the people in Colorado did. I wanted to see improvement so this is big. … He assured us his velocity would be there. He told us he was never a good spring training guy. I trusted him on it, but I wanted to see something."
Jimenez, after all, didn't come cheaply, and did bring expectations. He was, don't forget, a 19-game winner with Colorado in 2010, when he set a franchise record with a 2.88 ERA and threw the only no-hitter in Rockies history.
That's why the Indians gave up the promising 23-year-old arms of Pomeranz, the fifth player taken overall in the 2010 draft, and White, the 15th player selected overall in 2009. The left-handed Pomeranz, in only his second pro season and with only 101 minor league innings on his resume, is set in the Rockies rotation already, and the right-handed White is a likely member of the Colorado bullpen.
Jimenez understands.
"As a player you always want to do well," he said. "In the case where you are traded, you want to do better. There are a lot of expectations of you. You have to manage the expectations. … You try not to think about those things, to just go out and give your best."
That was a challenge for Jimenez. He was 4-4 with a 5.10 ERA in 11 starts for the Indians in the final two months last year. The Indians, meanwhile, faded from 1 1/2 games out in the AL Central on July 30, the day they acquired Jimenez, to 15 games out at season's end.
Then, this spring, he survived only 9 2/3 innings in his first four starts, allowing 14 runs, 10 earned, on 15 hits and nine walks. He struck out only six. That's when Acta lashed out.
That's why there was a guarded optimism after Tuesday's game.
"I like what I saw today," Acta said. "His secondary stuff was better... Ninety pitches are a lot for five innings. He has one more (start before the regular season) to get better."
There is room for improvement, although Jimenez tried to paint a positive picture.
"I felt great," he said. "I threw a lot of strikes and stayed head. I was able to be more consistent with my mechanics and that gave me better control in the strike zone. I accomplished what I was trying to do."
Well, sort of. It did require him to throw 90 pitches to get the 15 outs, and only 54 of the pitches were strikes. It is a statement of how out of sync he has been that Jimenez could feel like he did a good job of getting ahead in the count when he threw a first-pitch strike to only seven of 21 batters he faced.
His fastball hit 94 mph at times, and he was consistent in the 90-92 mph range, while mixing in an off-speed assortment that was a solid 10 miles-per-hour slower. That's not the 99 mph he would hit on occasion two years ago, but it's more than enough to have big league success.
Though Jimenez did not walk a White Sox batter, he did go to a three-ball count nine times.
Everything, however, is relative. After the way things went for him a year ago (combined 10-13, 4.68 between the Rockies and Indians) and at the start of this spring, he finds promise in his progress.
And he reached into his past to find encouragement. He remembers 2005 when he was a combined 7-8 with a 4.66 ERA in a season split between High-A and Double-A, and how he rebounded the next year, splitting time between Double-A and Triple-A, to go 14-4. By the All-Star break in 2007 he had made it to the big leagues.
"When you have been there and bounced back, you are able to handle the struggles," he said. "You are able to pitch (through the struggles) because you know you can overcome them in the past."
For the Indians, that history isn't there.
They need to see to believe.
They have gotten a glimpse in Jimenez's past two appearances.
