Correia having career year
PHOENIX — Kevin Correia’s All-Star season has certainly been career changing.
The right-hander is 11-7 with a 4.01 ERA in 20 games, 19 starts, and just one off the major-league lead in wins. Tonight, he will be part of his first All-Star Game as a member of the National League team at Chase Field.
?Being an All-Star is just another part of the nine-year veteran’s turnaround. He made his first opening day start this season, which seemed like an odd decision by manager Clint Hurdle at the time but has turned out be prescient in retrospect.
It’s all pretty amazing stuff for a guy who was going so badly last season that San Diego yanked him from its starting rotation in the midst of a pennant race and used him just twice as a reliever during the final month. Though the low-budget Padres were one of baseball feel good stories and Correia was born and raised in San Diego, he had little reason to feel good as he finished 10-10 with a 5.40 ERA in 28 games, 26 starts.
Correia is part of another feel good story this year as the Pirates, following 18 consecutive losing seasons, are only one game behind Milwaukee and St. Louis in the NL Central and even with the co-leaders in the loss column. He has been a bargain after being signed to a two-year, $8 million contract as a free agent last winter.
Correia, though, has reason to feel good beyond his pitching. He has found inner peace a year after his college-aged brother died in a hiking accident that the family fears may have been a suicide.
While Correia is reluctant to talk about his brother’s death, he will say that restarting his career in another city far from home has been cathartic.
“It’s been a whole new experience,” the 30-year-old Correia said. “A new organization, new teammates, a new city-all the things I needed to clear my mind. Leaving San Diego has given me a chance to focus on pitching again, going out and winning games.”
Correia has been ace-like in shutting down tough lineups as he has gone 6-1 with a 2.95 ERA in eight starts against teams that rank among the top 10 in the major leagues in runs scored. Those are the types of teams that often play in October.
“I’ve already had a lot of firsts this season, so maybe my next one will be something crazy like pitching the playoffs,” Correia said with a smile. “Who knows?”
It would be hard to count Correia and that possibility out after everything else that has happened in 2011.
John Perrotto is the national writer for BaseballProspectus.com.