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Jimenez dominates on big stage

Jack Etkin, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 1, 2007 at midnight

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On Saturday night, Rockies pitching coach Bob Apodaca looked toward Sunday and a must-win game that Ubaldo Jimenez would start. Jimenez's age - he's 23 - or his slender major league portfolio - he has 15 starts this season, 16 in his career - were trifling matters to Apodaca.

"I don't look at Ubaldo going out there (Sunday) as being a young guy," Apodaca said. "I see him as somebody who's been part of this journey that we're on and being a contributor to this journey. And he feels like he's a contributor."

Never more so than Sunday, when the Rockies beat Arizona 4-3 to set up their one-game wild-card playoff tonight with San Diego.

Jimenez held Arizona hitless for 5 1/3 innings and allowed one single in 6 1/3 innings with a career-high 10 strikeouts, eight of them swinging.

He issued consecutive walks and left with a 1-0 lead that promptly vanished. But Jimenez's memorable outing was such that manager Clint Hurdle said he "had obviously had a growth spurt" at the outset of his promising major league career.

"I just tried to relax," Jimenez said. "I just do what I know, like throw a strike and just challenge the hitters."

Apodaca never met with Jimenez before the game to discuss the Arizona batters. And he kept his meeting with catcher Yorvit Torrealba to about two minutes. Apodaca told Torrealba it was imperative that Jimenez get ahead of batters with his breaking pitches and even throw some when he got behind in the count.

"Be unpredictable is what I wanted him to be," Apodaca said.

Torrealba signaled more off-speed pitches than normal, particularly curveballs and sliders.

"We used that slider as a strikeout pitch," Torrealba said. "All those guys were basically looking for that 97-98 mile per hour fastball, and we just started mixing breaking balls, changeups and finishing with sliders."

Jimenez piled up nine strikeouts through four innings, ending each with an Arizona batter swinging and missing.

Tony Clark struck out in the first, stranding a runner on third base.

The Diamondbacks put a runner on second with one out in the second, but Miguel Montero and Carlos Quentin struck out.

They had a runner on second with one out in the third, which ended when Jimenez struck out Stephen Drew.

Cleanup hitter Clark, who struck out three times, went down swinging to end the sixth and strand a runner at second.

"I wasn't thinking about strikeouts, but they just came," Jimenez said. "Very fun to be out there."

Jimenez's 10 strikeouts tied Jeff Francis for the most by a Rockies pitcher this season and were the second most by a Rockies rookie.

Francis' 10 strikeouts came Sept. 18 against Los Angeles in the first game of a doubleheader.

Shawn Chacon had 13 strikeouts June 7, 2001, against Houston.

That year, Jimenez, 17, was launching his professional career with the Rockies team in the Dominican Summer League. Fast forward to this season, and Jimenez made 19 starts for Triple-A Colorado Springs before being recalled July 17.

When he came to Denver, Jimenez's father joined him here. Before Jimenez headed off to work Sunday, he said his father, a retired bus driver for an insurance company in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, told him, "Let's go. We have to win."

Jimenez did his part, and then some, while throwing a career-high 108 pitches, two more than he threw July 19 in his first start for the Rockies this season. He overmatched the Diamondbacks with his stuff, all the while maintaining what Apodaca called "a Bjorn Borg look" while going about his business.

"He holds everything inside well," Apodaca said. "You can't tell if he's struggling or being successful. When he comes off the mound and in the dugout we're talking, he's just so matter of fact. He's seething inside, but he really controls his emotions."