LHP Halama Returns to Blue Crabs for Playoffs

LHP Halama Returns To Blue Crabs For Playoffs

Posted by TBN On 09/19/2010

For the second year in a row, starting pitcher John Halama is back with the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs for the Atlantic League Playoffs. He returns to the Blue Crabs after finishing the Pacific Coast League season with the Triple-A Sacramento River Cats in the Oakland Athletics organization. Halama also pitched for the Blue Crabs in the 2009 Atlantic League Playoffs upon completing the regular season at Triple-A Gwinnett in the Atlanta Braves farm system.

Last season Halama went 2-1 in the playoffs, including a spectacular performance in Game 1 of the Liberty Division Championship Series against the Long Island Ducks September 24 at Regency Furniture Stadium. He pitched eight shutout innings, striking out four with no walks allowed. The Blue Crabs earned a 1-0 victory that night, and defeated the Ducks 3-2 in the best of five series to advance to the 2009 Atlantic League Championship Series.

Halama began this season in Southern Maryland, going 2-2 with a 1.62 ERA through six starts before the Athletics purchased his contract from the Blue Crabs on May 22. Halama was immediately assigned to Sacramento, where he went 6-2 with a 5.44 ERA and 40 strikeouts in 18 games and 14 starts.

A veteran of nine Major League seasons, Halama made his MLB debut with the Houston Astros in 1998, going 1-1 in six starts. Halama then went to the Seattle Mariners in October of that year as the player to be named later in the trade that sent Randy Johnson to Houston earlier that season. Halama spent the next four seasons with the Mariners, amassing a 41-31 record in 130 appearances and 81 starts from 1999 through 2002.

He went on to pitch for the Oakland Athletics (2003), Tampa Bay Devil Rays (2004), and the Boston Red Sox and Washington Nationals in 2005. Halama’s most recent season in the Major Leagues came in 2006, when he went 3-1 in 17 appearances and a start for the Baltimore Orioles.

Halama has a career Major League record of 56-48 with 492 strikeouts in 911 innings pitched. Now in his 17th professional season, Halama was drafted by Houston in 1994 and holds a 141-101 career record at all levels. He made his Atlantic League debut in 2007 with the Long Island Ducks before moving on to the expansion Blue Crabs the following year. Halama has pitched for the Blue Crabs in parts of each of their three seasons.

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