George Sherrill

George Friederich Sherrill is a professional baseball player from the United States of America who specializes in playing as a relief pitcher. Sherrill went to the Austin Peay State University where he was a part of the baseball team although Sherrill never really stood out amongst his teammates. Upon graduation, Sherrill failed to get drafted and as forced to begin playing in the individual leagues.

In 1999, Sherrill first signed up with the Evansville Otters of the Frontier League before moving to the Quebec Capitals in 2000. Midway through his the season with the Capitals, Sherrill returned to the Otters to end the season at the Frontier League team. In 2001, Sherrill moved back to the Northern League to play for the Sioux Falls Canaries before shifting to the Capitals and then to the Lincoln Saltdogs, all in 2001.

In 2002 and 2003, Sherrill’s last two seasons in the independent leagues, he moved to the Winnipeg Goldeyes, performing brilliantly, especially in 2003, with a 1.13 ERA and 30 strikeouts in 16 innings pitched, giving away just 8 hits.

Sherrill finally got noticed by an MLB team and was signed by the Seattle Mariners for the 2003 season, playing with the San Antonio Missions, in the AA-League, for the remainder of 2003.

Sherrill had experience and was sent to the Tacoma Rainiers in the AAA-League for 36 games. He had a 4-2 win-loss record from 36 games, striking out 62 batters in 50.1 innings at an ERA of 2.32 only. That performance was impressive enough to get him into the MLB roster for the remainder of the season especially after being named to the AAA-League All-Star team.

In 2005, Sherrill, who was recovering from the injury, started the season with the Arizona Mariners in the Rookie League before playing a few games with the Tacoma Rainiers in the AAA-League and finally reaching the MLB roster, again, when the size was extended to 40 towards the second half of the season. In 2006, despite being a regular member of the starting rotation at the Seattle Mariners, it wasn’t until 2007 that Sherrill truly came into the picture.

Despite an overall 2.37 ERA for the entire season, Sherrill actually played under-2, in the ERA department, for most of the season, accumulating 2 wins and 53 strikeouts in 45.2 innings pitched. Sherrill assumed the role of becoming the main 8th inning pitcher leading onto the Mariners’ closer, J. J. Putz. Injuries to Mark Lowe and the trade of Rafael Soriano also favoured such a move for the Mariners.

In February 2008, Sherrill was traded out to the Baltimore Orioles and was named as their closer for the season. Sherrill performed admirably, pitching at 4.73 through 57 games and 53.1 innings on his way to becoming one of the closing pitchers for the American League All-Star team at the All-Star game. Sherrill was re-signed by the Orioles for another season where he pitched at 2.40 over 38 innings with 20 saves as compared to 31 from his previous season.

At the end of the season, the Orioles decided to trade Sherrill out to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Josh Bell and Steve Johnson. On his debut season with the Dodgers, Sherrill had a 0.65 ERA in 30 games with 22 strikeouts.