Ho's Gotta Go

Horacio Ramirez. We traded Rafael Soriano for this guy. We traded a 27 year old dynamite reliever, who may have had a future as a starting pitcher for Horacio Ramirez; he of the career 1.21 K/BB ratio, the career 5.11 FIP, and the absolutely insane 3.66 home ERA/5.20 road ERA split. What has he done for us this year? 7.12 ERA. 5.38 FIP, 5.49 xFIP. Sure, he's posted a 7-3 record, but by all accounts you can pretty much credit the offense with supplying him with 8.33 runs per nine innings. Here's a log of his starts in which the M's have staked an early lead for him, and he's blown it:

May 3 vs. Boston Red Sox: Mariners jump out to a 5-0 lead in the 1st inning. By the bottom of the 2nd, the BoSox have tied it up. The Sox then add 2 more in the 4th to take a 7-5 lead.

May 8 vs. Detroit Tigers: Mariners score 3 in the top of the 1st. The Tigers tie it up in the 2nd. The M's score 1 in the top of the 4th, but the Tigers score 3 more in the bottom half to take a 6-4 lead. The M's creep back by scoring a run in the top of the 6th, but the Tigers get it back by scoring another in the bottom of the 6th to make it 7-5.

July 23 vs. Texas Rangers: Mariners go up 2-0 in the top of the 1st. Ho holds the lead until the bottom of the 3rd when he allows 3 runs. The M's fight back by scoring 1 in the top of the 4th to tie it up, but Ho can't hang on. The Rangers score 5 runs in the bottom of the 5th to knock Ramirez from the game.

August 9 vs. Baltimore Orioles: M's score 3 in the top of the first, and add another in the 3rd to go up 4-0. Ho holds "strong" until the wheels fall off in the bottom half of the inning. The O's put up 5 runs to take the 1 run lead. The M's eventually tie it up and go on to win, but turning a 4 run lead into a 1 run deficit is something we've seen far too often from Horacio Ramirez.

It's not as if Ramirez has been incredibly unlucky this year. He just simply doesn't have the stuff to be a major league pitcher. When facing Ramirez, hitters are putting up an obscene .368/.436/.554 batting line against him (.410/.485/.675 on the road). That's basically like having 9 Ted Williams' facing Ho every game. How have the Mariners given 13 starts to this guy?

With guys like Robert Rohrbaugh, and Jorge Campillo knocking at the door in Tacoma, there really isn't a good reason to keep giving starts to Horacio Ramirez.