Start or Sit: Ricky Romero at Indians

Ricky Martin has forever tainted the name, "Ricky."

But Toronto Blue Jay Romero is bringing it back to respectability.

Automatic start tonight at Cleveland against the below-average Indians?

After a quick glance at the pitcher vs batters numbers and the fact that at least third of the Indians lineup is comprised of lefties, I was inclined to say, "Yes," to the above question.

But then I checked out Romero's L/R splits, just to make sure. Romero's only been around the majors since 2009, so I wasn't entirely satisfied with his splits from last year, which showed that lefties touched him up for 10 HR in 55 1/3 IP (compared to 8 HR in 122 2/3 IP for righties). So I turned to minorleaguesplits.com.

Disturbing, right? Lefties hit better off Romero in his minor league career.

Adding to the poor lefty vs lefty minor and major league splits is the fact that the Indians best hitters are lefties (Grady Sizemore and Shin-Soo Choo).

I can still see Romero coming out of this battle in Cleveland with a win (his opposition Jake Westbrook hasn't been very good this year and the Jays have been hitting well of late - 3rd with . 489 SLG in the league during the past 7 days), but I'm afraid that the ERA and WHIP may be a bit bloated and K mediocre.

I'm not taking a chance: I'm sitting Ricky Romero.