Kevin D. Ritz (born June 8, 1965) is an American former

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

. Ritz grew up in

Bloomfield, Iowa Bloomfield is a city in Davis County, Iowa, United States. The population was 2,682 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Davis County. Geography Bloomfield is located in the southeastern part of Iowa, near the Missouri border. Bloomfiel ...

. He is an alumnus of William Penn University and Indian Hills Community College. Ritz was drafted by the

Detroit Tigers The Detroit Tigers are an American professional baseball team based in Detroit. The Tigers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the American League (AL) Central division. One of the AL's eight charter franchises, the club was f ...

in the 4th round of the 1985 MLB amateur draft. He pitched for the

(1989–92) and the

Colorado Rockies The Colorado Rockies are an American professional baseball team based in Denver. The Rockies compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. The team plays its home baseball games at Coors Fie ...

(1994–1998). In 1989, Ritz was honored as Tigers Rookie of the Year. Ritz had his big break when he joined the Rockies in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

, where he found some success in his career. He was a member of the first

team to reach the playoffs. This came in the

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

season. His best season was in

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

, when he went 17-11 in 213 innings pitched, despite recording a high

ERA An era is a span of time defined for the purposes of chronology or historiography, as in the regnal eras in the history of a given monarchy, a calendar era used for a given calendar, or the geological eras defined for the history of Earth. Compa ...

of 5.28 in hitter-friendly Coors Field and leading the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team s ...

in Earned Runs Allowed (125). That year he won 10 games before the All Star break; the only other Rockies pitchers to have done that through 2010 are Shawn Chacón (2003),

Aaron Cook Aaron Cook may refer to: *Aaron Cook (baseball) (born 1979), Major League Baseball pitcher * Aaron Cook (footballer) (born 1979), Welsh footballer * Aaron Cook (politician), Nauruan politician *Aaron Cook (taekwondo) Aaron Arthur Cook (born 2 ...

(2008), Jason Marquis (2009), and Ubaldo Jiménez (2010).https://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i-N0FShyB-DFjiS1lIwsHoXk_-XgD995EPH00 Ritz was an excellent fielding pitcher in his major league career. In 753.1

innings pitched In baseball, innings pitched (IP) are the number of innings a pitcher has completed, measured by the number of batters and baserunners that are put out while the pitcher is on the pitching mound in a game. Three outs made is equal to one innin ...

in 151 games, he committed only two errors in 211 total chances for a .991

fielding percentage In baseball statistics, fielding percentage, also known as fielding average, is a measure that reflects the percentage of times a defensive player properly handles a batted or thrown ball. It is calculated by the sum of putouts and assists, div ...

References

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1965 births Colorado Rockies players Detroit Tigers players New Haven Ravens players Lakeland Tigers players Colorado Springs Sky Sox players Toledo Mud Hens players Glens Falls Tigers players Gastonia Tigers players Living people Indian Hills Falcons baseball players William Penn Statesmen baseball players Major League Baseball pitchers Baseball players from New Jersey People from Eatontown, New Jersey Sportspeople from the New York metropolitan area People from Bloomfield, Iowa Baseball players from Iowa Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks players {{US-baseball-pitcher-1960s-stub