Yovani Gallardo has allowed his fair share of home runs – heck, he allowed 16 long ones in 118 innings, leading to a career-worst 1.2 home runs-per-nine one year in Baltimore – but there was a time when he was the threat at the plate.
Specifically, this one time he homered of Randy Johnson:
Yes. That’s Hall of Fame southpaw Randy Johnson.
The same Randy Johnson who won 303 games, five (5!) Cy Young Awards and struck out 4,875 batters in his 22-year big league career.
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It’s not as if Johnson never gave up home runs (he allowed 411 career homers, in fact). But of the 411 gopher balls he served up in his 4,000+ innings pitched, Gallardo was the only pitcher to do take him deep. Yovani Gallardo.
Yes. It was Gallardo – proud owner of a career .227 batting average – who took a five-time Cy Young award winner deep into the San Francisco night. What a blast.
To his credit, Gallardo wasn’t a bad hitter for a pitcher. He won the National League’s Silver Slugger award in 2010, a season where he made the All-Star team while pitching for the Milwaukee Brewers. And Gallardo – who won’t likely get too many chances to swing for the fences now that he pitches for the Seattle Mariners – hit 12 home runs in 406 plate appearances from 2007-13.
But it’s that home run off Johnson that will live forever in baseball lore.