Orioles Rain Delay – A Game for Ubaldo Jimenez?

Aug 16, 2014; Cleveland, OH, USA; Baltimore Orioles starting pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez (31) delivers a pitch in the second inning against the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports

The Baltimore Orioles are in a rain delay in Chicago that does not look like is going to pass quickly, yet they will most certainly play the rest of this game today.

The starting pitchers will most certainly not return, which may be good in Bud Norris’ case—he did not have good stuff and has thrown 58 pitches in two innings. Yes, there was a series of consecutive junk hits after a walk … but then a three-run triple also.

So, could this be a game to productively use Ubaldo Jimenez? If not now, when? If not him, who? Others are thinking the same thing.

If I were Buck, I would do it. You have to use him sometime. Maybe lightening will strike (not literally) and he’ll fix something and give you some good innings (OK, maybe that takes a literal lightening strike).

Remember how the Orioles worked their way through most of the 2012 season with Captain Chaos Kevin Gregg? That may well be the sort of thing Showalter has to do with Ubaldo.

Buck has several times recently said something like, “Baseball has a strange way of making heroes out of unlikely people.”  He wasn’t referencing Jimenez, but, why not today? (I know, there is that issue of throwing strikes.)