Giovanni Carrara

Giovanni Carrara Jiménez [car-RAH-ra] (born March 4, 1968 in El Tigre, Anzoátegui, Venezuela) is a Major League Baseball pitcher who currently plays in Serie A1 in Italy for the Caffè Danesi Nettuno. He most recently pitched in MLB for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Carrara bats and throws right-handed. He established himself as a valuable middle relief man in MLB, but is a starter in Italy.

A failed starter in MLB, he converted to an effective long reliever. Carrara has a 90-92 MPH fastball. He also throws a couple of breaking balls: a deceptive slow curve, as his off-speed pitch, and a hard one that is somewhere between a slider and cut fastball. He controls the running game as well, with a good move to both first base and second, and a quick delivery to the plate.

On August 15, 2001, Carrara combined with fellow Venezuelan pitchers Omar Daal, Kelvim Escobar, and Freddy García to win their respective starts: Carrara, of the Dodgers, facing Montreal, 13-1; Daal, in a Phillies victory over the Brewers, 8-6; Escobar, of the Blue Jays, over Oakland, 5-2, and García, of Seattle, against the Red Sox, 6-2. This marked the first time in major league history that four pitchers coming from Venezuela have recorded a winning game in their respective starts in the same day.

On August 26, 2006, Carrara was designated for assignment by the Dodgers. He was called up in September 2006 when rosters expanded and used sparingly after re-joining the big league club. The Dodgers chose not to re-sign Carrara in the offseason.

On May 4, 2007, Carrara was signed by the Caffè Danesi Nettuno of Serie A1 in Italy. In 2008, he was 8-2 with a 2.35 ERA and 49 strikeouts.

Sources

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube
• Retrosheet - 2001 box scores
• Italian Team
• The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia – Gary Gillette, Peter Gammons, Pete Palmer. Publisher: Sterling Publishing, 2005. Format: Paperback, 1824pp. Language: English. ISBN 1-4027-4771-3