At the beginning of the season, many analysts were predicting Roy Halladay would be able to win 25 games in the National League with the Phillies. Halladay has pitched well, and when I say well, I mean he threw a perfect game for God's sake. His ERA is only 2.43 and he has 98 strikeouts, but his beloved Phillies have been letting him down and that 2.43 ERA, which ranks seventh in the NL has only earned him a record of 8-6. He has gained half of those losses in his last three starts. But while the Phillies struggle to provide run support to Halladay, he still has the most innings pitched in all of baseball. He has done his part well enough.
Despite that, Halladay trails the previously relatively unknown Ubaldo Jimenez in the win category by 5.
Jimenez has been a machine and at 13-1 is making people question not if he can win 25, but if he can win 30. His ERA is barely visible at 1.15. He threw the season's first no-hitter on April 17 and didn't allow a run the rest of the month.
He has recorded a decision in every outing thus far, with his only loss coming on an outing on the road against the Dodgers where he went 7 innings, gave up 2 hits, and 1 earned run, a game that by other pitcher's standards may have been their best outing of the season.
If Ubaldo keeps up this pace, he may be looking at a season of 30-3 or 31-2, which would be basically unheard of in this day and age.
So can he do it? No.
I'm not saying this guy isn't an amazing pitcher, or that he won't win the Cy Young in the NL. I think he will run away with it, but don't expect 30 wins out of him.
I'm not an advocate for looking at pitch count as a reason to take a guy out of a game, but Ubaldo's biggest weakness (if you had to find one) is that he walks a lot of batters. Even in his no-hitter, he walked 6 batters. His WHIP of 1.00 is still fantastic, but walking batters unnecessarily drives up his pitch count. He has thrown 90 or more pitches in every game and over 100 in 11 out of 14 starts, reaching 120 pitches four times.
His pitch totals are fairly comparable to Halladay's, but we know Halladay has proven he can do this before. In 2009, Halladay threw 100 pitches in all but five games (one an injury-ended outing).
Ubaldo was just as durable in 2009 when he threw 100 pitches in all but four games, topping 120 twice all season. The only difference is that in 2010, he is allowing fewer runs and fewer hits and therefore winning more games.
In 2008 and 2009, it took Ubaldo a while to get going. In 2008, his best month was July, in which he went 5-1 in six starts with an ERA of 1.74. In August 2009, he went 5-1 in six starts with an ERA of 1.77, both very good months.
In 2010, he looks more like he's slowing down as the season wears on. In April, he went 5-0 with an ERA of 0.79. In May, he went 5-1 with an ERA of 0.78. I don't see him having a July or August that could possibly be much better than those two months, considering his June currently shows him at 3-0 with an ERA of 2.57.
The man is human and he is going to allow more hits and more runs as the season progresses, which unfortunately means he's going to collect a few losses along the way, even some no-decisions.
My prediction is Ubaldo ends the season 24-5 with an ERA of 2.03 and is the unanimous Cy Young award winner.
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