Today, August 13, is Randy Messenger‘s 35th birthday. Happy birthday, big fella! We are so fortunate to have such a steady guy as the anchor of the pitching staff. Here’s a little run-down of Randy’s Hanshin accomplishments:
- Longest serving foreigner in club history (tied with Jeff Williams and Gene Bacque, but not for long!)
- Second most career strikeouts by a foreign pitcher in NPB history
- Most wins (2014), Most strikeouts (2013-14) in the Central League
- Seventy one wins puts him #2 in team history among foreign pitchers (behiind Bacque)
- He loves the fans and the fans love him, as evidenced by the picture above
Well, this same Messenger pitched the night before his birthday, and yours truly was in attendance. He went 8 1/3 innings and gave up just two runs (both in the ninth inning) while utterly dominating. He was, naturally, named the hero of the game (along with Taiga Egoshi and Kosuke Fukudome, who hit solo shots to spark the team to victory). And during the hero interview, well, let’s just say a certain someone shows up in the video clip below (around the 3:07 mark).
So once again, a great big “happy birthday” to the big guy! Here’s to many, many more!