Kevin Blankenship

Kevin DeWayne Blankenship (born January 26, 1963 in Anaheim, California) was a right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball for the Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves.

Blankenship was signed by the Braves as an undrafted free agent out of the University of Arizona. He labored for five seasons in the minors before getting called up to the majors by Atlanta in late 1988. He made two starts for the Braves, debuting on September 20, when he struck out the very first batter he faced, San Francisco's Brett Butler. taking the loss on both September 20 and 25, before Atlanta traded him and Randy Coffman to the Cubs in an extraordinarily late-in-the-season deal for catcher Jody Davis. He started the Cubs' final game of the season and got his first major league win, going five-plus innings and allowing four runs, defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates' Randy Kramer. Blankenship was helped out significantly by a Rafael Palmeiro grand slam that put the Cubs up 8-1 in the fifth inning.

Blankenship spent most of 1989 pitching for the Cubs' AAA team in Iowa, but was called up when rosters expanded in September and made two relief appearances for Chicago in the final month of their divisional championship season, allowing one run in 5 1/3 innings of work. He was not on the Cubs' postseason roster.

The 1990 Cubs had a rash of injuries to their starting pitchers, and Blankenship again found himself in the majors in May. He made just two starts, losing both. His final appearance was in relief of Mike Bielecki on June 12 in a game the Cubs ended up losing 19-8 at Wrigley Field. Blankenship allowed two runs in 2 2/3 innings on a day when Cub outfielder Doug Dascenzo pitched a scoreless ninth inning, the only Cub hurler not to allow a run that day.

After spending the rest of 1990 in Iowa, Blankenship became a free agent. He signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates and pitched for their AAA farm team in Buffalo in 1991, then closed out his career pitching in Oklahoma City in 1992 for Texas's AAA affiliate. Blankenship retired after the 1992 season with a major league record of 1-3 and a 4.59 ERA.

References

* [http://www.baseball-reference.com/b/blankke01.shtml Baseball-reference page]
* [http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/B/Kevin-Blankenship.shtml Stats at The Baseball Cube]