After his 2014 struggles, can Ubaldo Jimenez turn it around next season?

When the Orioles signed pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez to a four-year deal worth $50 million in February, the fan response was overwhelmingly positive.

Now, less than a year later, most fans are down on the 30-year-old right-hander who went 6-9 with a 4.81 ERA in 25 games. Jimenez had a few good moments as an Oriole, but not enough to keep him from losing his rotation spot late in the year or fans from losing confidence in him.

He was signed coming off an excellent 2013 with Cleveland, where he went 13-9 with a 3.30 ERA that ranked 10th in the American League. He was sensational in the second half, going 6-5 with a 1.82 ERA in 13 starts.

But Jimenez had not pitched well in the two years before that and here are his ERAs over the last four seasons:

2011 - 4.68
2012 - 5.40
2013 - 3.30
2014 - 4.81

Jimenez saw his WHIP increase from 1.33 in 2013 to 1.52 last year. His walks were up and his strikeouts were down. The walks went from 3.9 per nine innings to 5.5 and the strikeouts dropped from 9.6 to 8.3 per nine innings.

During 2013, the 9.6 strikeouts per nine innings ranked seventh among MLB starters, ahead of pitchers such as Stephen Strasburg, Felix Hernandez, Chris Sale and Clayton Kershaw.

While Jimenez struggled in April 2013, pitching to an ERA of 7.13, he then allowed two runs or less in 21 of his last 28 Cleveland starts, going 13-7 with a 2.61 ERA in that span.

But the Orioles never saw that pitcher.

At the end of last year, Jimenez had clearly made some adjustments, as he wasn't bringing his hands over his head during his windup. It looked quieter, cleaner and produced better results, although in a very small sample size. Maybe pitching coach Dave Wallace found something that will work moving forward.

One good moment for Jimenez came on the night of Sept. 16 when he made his first start in a month and pitched five innings to get the win over Toronto in the game where the O's clinched the American League East.

After that game, in a champagne-soaked clubhouse, he talked about how special that night was for him.

"It means a lot. I just want to be part of the team. Doing that tonight, I feel a part of it," Jimenez said. "Really happy."

Here is another stat that is hard to understand: Jimenez was terrible in day games and good at night. He went 1-5 with an 8.82 ERA and .313 average against during day games. At night, he went 5-4 with a 3.40 ERA and .213 average against.

For his career, Jimenez has an ERA of 4.41 during the day and 3.80 at night.

Jimenez is owed $38.75 million over the next three seasons. While there were rumors the Orioles would be willing to trade him, we've never seen any reports of serious takers for Jimenez or how much of his contract the O's might have to eat in a deal.

The excitement of this signing has long since worn off and most fans are not real excited about his pitching prospects for 2015.

Do fans hold out any hope for the right-hander?