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Scott Edward Kazmir (; born January 24, 1984) is an American professional baseball pitcher who is a free agent. He has played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays/Rays, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Cleveland Indians, Oakland Athletics and Houston Astros. After his high school career in his hometown of Houston, Texas, Kazmir was drafted in the first round of the 2002 Major League Baseball Draft by the New York Mets, who later sent him to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in a highly publicized and criticized trade. Kazmir made his major league debut with the Devil Rays on August 23, , when he was only 20 years old. Despite his age, Kazmir quickly became one of the better lefthanded starting pitchers in baseball, primarily by relying on a mid-90s fastball paired with a sharp breaking slider. Over the next several years, Kazmir was one of the few bright spots on Devil Rays teams that lost 90+ games per season. He is still among the all-time leaders in many franchise pitching categories, including strikeouts, earned run average (ERA), wins, and games started.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Tampa Bay Rays Top 10 Pitching Leaders )〕 Nagging injuries lead to inconsistency in Kazmir's pitching motion and gradually reduced his pitch velocity and overall effectiveness beginning in . The Rays traded Kazmir to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in August , where he performed well for a time. However, his effectiveness deteriorated during the season, when he posted the highest ERA among American League starting pitchers. Continued poor performances during spring training in led the Angels to send Kazmir to the minor leagues to retool his mechanics and regain his confidence, but continued ineffectiveness there led to his release in June 2011. After months of individual work and short stints with independent minor league and winter league teams in 2012 and 2013, Kazmir signed a minor league deal with the Cleveland Indians before the season. Solid performances in spring training earned him a spot in the Indians' starting rotation, and he pitched well enough during the 2013 season to come in third in the voting for American League Comeback Player of the Year. In December 2013, Kazmir signed a two-year contract with the Oakland Athletics and continued his resurgence by winning a career-high 15 games during the season. The Athletics traded Kazmir to the Astros in 2015 for two minor league prospects. ==High school career== Kazmir attended Cypress Falls High School in Harris County, Texas, where he was a two-sport athlete, through his sophomore year, pitching on the baseball team and starting at quarterback on the junior varsity football team. During one stretch on the high school baseball diamond, Kazmir threw five no-hitters in six games (three consecutive no-hitters, a one-hit game, followed by two more no-hitters). As a senior, he struck out 172 batters in 75 innings pitched and had an earned run average (ERA) of 0.37. By the time he graduated, Kazmir was averaging around 17 to 18 strikeouts per game. Kazmir was highly recruited in both sports and verbally committed to the University of Texas at Austin to play college baseball for the Texas Longhorns.〔 However, Kazmir was drafted in the first round (15th overall) of the 2002 MLB Draft by the New York Mets and signed on to play professional baseball. Along with teammate Clint Everts (who was selected 5th overall by the Montreal Expos), he became half of the first pair of high school pitchers from the same team drafted in the first round. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Scott Kazmir」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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