Mike Cuellar

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Mike Cuellar bigraphy, stories - Cuban baseball player

Mike Cuellar : biography

May 8, 1937 – April 2, 2010

Miguel Ángel Cuellar Santana (May 8, 1937 – April 2, 2010) [KWAY-ar] was a Cuban left-handed starting pitcher who spent fifteen seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) with the Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis Cardinals, Houston Astros, Baltimore Orioles and California Angels. His best years were spent with the Orioles,Obituary Washington Post, April 4, 2010. helping them capture five American League East Division titles, three consecutive American League (AL) pennants and the 1970 World Series Championship. He shared the AL Cy Young Award in 1969 and won 20-or-more games in a season four times from 1969 to 1974. He was a part of the last starting rotation to feature four pitchers with at least twenty victories each in one season.Obituary Los Angeles Times, April 4, 2010; page A31. Cuellar, nicknamed Crazy Horse while with the Orioles, ranks among Baltimore’s top five career leaders in wins (143), strikeouts (1,011), shutouts (30) and innings pitched (2,028), and trails only Dave McNally among left-handers in wins and shutouts.

Quote

  • I gave Mike Cuellar more chances than my first wife. – Earl Weaver, former Orioles manager.http://www.thebaseballpage.com/past/pp/weaverearl/

Other career highlights

  • A four-time member of the American League All-Star Team (1967, 1970–71, and 1974)
  • Led the American League in winning percentage in 1974.
  • Finished eighth in the voting for the American League MVP in 1969, and tenth in the voting for MVP in 1974.
  • Became the first player to hit a grand slam in any League Championship Series in 1970 against the Minnesota Twins. He remains the only pitcher to hit a grand slam in any League Championship Series.

Professional career

A clever pitcher with an excellent screwball and change-up, Cuellar was signed by the Cincinnati Reds as an amateur free agent in after drawing attention with a no-hitter he pitched for an army team in while serving in the Cuban army during the Batista regime.

Cuellar made his major league debut with Cincinnati in a 14–9 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies at Crosley Field on April 18, 1959. He entered the contest in relief of Don Newcombe in the second inning with the Reds losing 4–2. In his two innings of work, Cuellar surrendered a grand slam to Gene Freese in the third and a two-run double to Al Schroll in the fourth. His only other appearance with the Reds came three days later in its 7–4 defeat to the Milwaukee Braves at County Stadium on April 21. Again he pitched two innings in relief, but he gave up two runs.

Cuellar next spent five years in the minor leagues and Mexican baseball, including periods with the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians farm systems. He was acquired in 1964 by the St. Louis Cardinals, where his win-loss record was 5–5, primarily as a relief pitcher, while the Cardinals made a late-season surge as the Philadelphia Phillies collapsed in September. This took the Cardinals and Cuellar to the 1964 World Series.

Houston Astros

Cuellar was traded along with Ron Taylor to the Houston Astros for Hal Woodeshick and Chuck Taylor at the June 15 trade deadline in . Upon joining the starting rotation in 1966 for the Astros, Cuellar won his first six decisions. The last of them was a 3–2 complete game over the Cardinals at the Astrodome on June 25, in which he ptiched a career-high 15 strikeouts. In his final start of the campaign, a 4–3 road win over Cincinnati in the second match of a September 28 twi-night doubleheader, he hit his first major-league home run off of Sammy Ellis to lead off the top of the fifth. Cuellar finished at 12–10, with a 2.22 earned run average (ERA) which was second in the National League to Sandy Koufax’s 1.73.

Cuellar improved his win-loss record to sixteen victories in 1967 for the Astros, setting a team record for left-handed pitchers. (This stood for six years until Dave Roberts surpassed it with seventeen in 1973). He made the first of four Major League Baseball All-Star Game appearances at Anaheim Stadium on July 11. He came into the contest in relief of Chris Short in the eleventh. Of the seven batters he faced, the only baserunner he allowed in the two shutout innings he pitched was Carl Yastrzemski who hit a two-out single in the twelfth inning.