Thursday, August 08, 2013

Scott Kazmir and Ubaldo Jimenez

The Cleveland Indians might be contenders this season because of the resurgence of Kazmir and to a certain extent, Ubaldo Jimenez - it's scary to think the Indians will look upon these two guys to help them contend for the rest of the year, but I hope they can continue what they've been doing.

Lately, Kazmir has looked like the way he was when he pitched in Tampa Bay - though he took the Angels for a ride and had to sort of rebuild his career, including playing for an independent league team in 2012.

When the Indians signed him in the off-season, I thought this guy wasn't going to make the MLB roster - no matter what he did, I'm always expecting him to fail because of how he sucked so badly with the Angels.

If Kazmir hadn't gone through a hiccup in his career - maybe he's just another good MLB pitcher, but there is something interesting and maybe inspiring when a professional athlete fails and has to find a way back to where he once was.

Maybe I'm warming up to the Scott Kazmir comeback story of 2013 - though I wonder how long he can keep it up and whether he's found new life.

Jimenez will probably be never be better than a No. 4 starter but he has put up more serviceable, if not great numbers this year - it remains to be seen how many 'dud' starts both he and Kazmir have left and how many starts they have left, where the results mimic some of their early MLB successes.

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