Dan Haren

Dan Haren
File:RS P7241951.jpg
Oakland Athletics – No. 24
Starting Pitcher
Bats: Right Throws: Right
debut
June 30, 2003, for the St. Louis Cardinals
Career statistics (through August 31, 2006)
Record	32-32
ERA	4.01
Strikeouts	392

Daniel John ("Dan") Haren (born September 17, 1980 in Monterey Park, California) is a baseball pitcher who currently plays for the Oakland Athletics. He is, along with Rich Harden and Joe Blanton, part of the "New Big Three", a name given to the A's 3 new young star pitchers that replaced Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, and Mark Mulder--the A's Big Three from 2000-2004.

Dan Haren graduated from Bishop Amat Memorial High School in La Puente, CA in 1998. He attended Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA on a baseball scholarship. It was there that Haren teamed up with Noah Lowry, a left-handed pitcher just one month younger than Haren, to form the best starting pitching duo in the West Coast Conference. In the 2001 season, Haren posted a 2.22 ERA in 17 starts and Lowry posted a 1.71 ERA in 18 starts. The teammates (and roommates) skipped their senior seasons, and Lowry was taken in the 1st round (30th overall) by the San Francisco Giants and Haren was taken in the 2nd round (72nd overall) by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2001 Major League Baseball Draft.

Haren quickly shot up through the St. Louis organization. He made 28 starts in A-ball in 2002 for Peoria and Potomac, finishing with a combined ERA of 2.74. He started 2003 in Double-A Tennessee, but was so dominant in his 8 starts he was promoted to Triple-A Memphis and eventually made it all the way to the big club, making his major league debut at the age of 22. He pitched well in his debut but was outdueled by Jason Schmidt, who went on to finish second in the National League Cy Young Award voting that year. After finishing 2003 with a 5.08 ERA for the Cardinals, however, he was sent back down to Memphis for the 2004 season. He did receive a late-season call-up, and made 5 appearances in the postseason for the Cardinals, including 2 in the World Series. The Cardinals were swept by the Boston Red Sox, but Haren pitched well in the series, tossing 4 2/3 scoreless innings.

After the 2004 season, Haren was traded in a package that included right-handed reliever Kiko Calero and top hitting prospect Daric Barton to the Oakland Athletics for Mark Mulder, one of the best pitchers in the American League. Mulder was surprisingly not missed, as Haren went 14-12 with a 3.73 ERA in his first full season as a major leaguer.

With Haren joining the A's, he gets the opportunity to pitch against the rival San Francisco Giants in the Bay Bridge Series. Coincidentally, he has gone head-to-head multiple times against best friend and former teammate Noah Lowry, who also quickly made it to the majors. Haren has been the victor in both of the Haren/Lowry duels, and although Lowry was the more highly touted prospect coming out of Pepperdine, they have put up eerily similar numbers in their first major league seasons:

Haren: 2-30, 10.73 ERA in 34 starts

Lowry: 30-2, 1.78 ERA in 33 starts

Haren and Lowry were former tenants in the same apartment building South San Francisco. He currently lives in Walnut Creek with his wife, Jessica. Haren and Jessica got married during the offseason in 2006.

Haren's style of pitching

Dan Haren throws a 93-95 mph fastball, a sharp split-finger fastball, and the occasional changeup and slider. When able to control his split-finger fastball, batters swing foolishly as the ball drops down at the last second. He's a pitcher that throws a lot of strikes and has had one of the best K/BB ratios in the league. Because of this though, he is prone to giving up more home runs than he would like.

In 2005, Dan Haren broke the top 10 in the American League in the following categories: 217 Innings (9th), 163 Strikeouts (6th), and 3 Complete Games (4th).

External links

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball Reference
• Template:Espn mlb
• Haren's Heat: Dan Haren's MLBlog