Major League Career
Tapani made his Major League debut on July 4, 1989. He entered the game in the 1st inning after starter Ojeda had given up eight runs to the Houston Astros while only getting two outs. Thrown into the fire, Tapani completed 4 1/3 innings while giving up 2 hits, 3 walks, and only allowing one more run. Over the next four weeks, he would only get into two more games, pitching a total of 7 2/3 innings in relief. On July 31, just prior to the end of the non-waiver trade deadline, Tapani was included in the blockbuster trade that sent 1988 A.L. Cy Young Award winner Frank Viola, who was vocal in his desire to get a big salary increase in free agency, from the Minnesota Twins to the Mets in exchange for major league swingman Rick Aguilera, minor league relievers Tim Drummond and Jack Savage, and phenom starter David West. Tapani was then thrown into the Twins starting rotation and finished the 1989 season 2-2 with a 3.86 ERA in 32 2/3 innings.
After his promising debut, Tapani was made a fixture of the rotation in 1990 and finished the season 12-8 with 4.07 ERA - good enough for 5th place in the AL Rookie of the Year balloting (a distant 131 votes behind the winner, Cleveland Indians' catcher Sandy Alomar Jr. He would follow up his rookie season with perhaps his best overall season in 1991, finishing 16-9 with only 40 walks and 135 strikeouts in 244 innings with 2.99 ERA - his lowest and only sub-3.00 ERA of his career. He then garnered enough Cy Young votes to finish a distant seventh behind winner Roger Clemens and teammates Scott Erickson and Jack Morris who finished second and fourth respectively. Over his 7 seasons with the Twins, Tapani was a workhorse starter the Twins who averaged more than 13 wins and over 200 innings in his five full seasons. After suffering through three poor seasons (the beginning of what would be eight consecutive losing seasons) and looking at losing the soon to be free agent Tapani after the 1995 season, the Twins traded him on July 31 to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Ron Coomer, Chris Latham, José Parra, and Greg Hansell. Unfortunately this was a largely forgettable trade on the Twins' part as only Coomer would be only useful player to come over from the Dodgers.
After finishing 4-2 down the stretch for the Dodgers, Tapani pitched in Game 3 against the Cincinnati Reds in the National League Divisional series and gave up 3 runs and 4 walks in only 1/3 of an inning in relief of starter Hideo Nomo in a 10-1 loss that capped off the Reds' 3-0 sweep. After being granted Free Agency in December 1995, Tapani signed a one-year contract with the Chicago White Sox on February 3, 1996 and turned in another typical "Tapani" season for the Sox - finishing 13-10 with a 4.59 ERA and 150 strikeouts in 225 1/3 innings.
After again being granted free agency following the 1996 season, Tapani moved across town and signed a five-year contract with the Cubs on December 13. On July 20, 1998 while playing for the Cubs, Tapani had perhaps the most memorable day of his career. Throwing 8 innings against the Braves, he allowed just three runs and topped it off by hitting a third inning grand slam off former Twins teammate Denny Neagle in an 11-4 romp over the Atlanta Braves.
In his career, Tapani pitched adeptly in both the American League and National League, and played his last game on September 27, 2001. His career record: 143 wins, 125 losses, and an ERA of 4.35. In 1998 with the Chicago Cubs, Tapani earned his best record of 19-9, though his ERA was 4.85. In 1991, with the Twins, Tapani had his lowest ERA of 2.99 to go with a 16-9 record and 7th place in the 1991 Cy Young Award voting.
Read more about this topic: Kevin Tapani
Famous quotes containing the words major, league and/or career:
“No culture on earth outside of mid-century suburban America has ever deployed one woman per child without simultaneously assigning her such major productive activities as weaving, farming, gathering, temple maintenance, and tent-building. The reason is that full-time, one-on-one child-raising is not good for women or children.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“I am not impressed by the Ivy League establishments. Of course they graduate the best—it’s all they’ll take, leaving to others the problem of educating the country. They will give you an education the way the banks will give you money—provided you can prove to their satisfaction that you don’t need it.”
—Peter De Vries (b. 1910)
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)