Corey Kluber

Corey Kluber was a two-time AL Cy Young winner with Cleveland who signed a one-year "prove it" deal with the New York Yankees in January 2021 and, nine starts in, threw the franchise's first no-hitter since 1999. He made 16 starts in pinstripes, went 5-3 with a 3.83 ERA, and left after a single season -- but that one no-hit game against Texas is the reason his name still comes up in the Bronx.

Path to the Bronx

Kluber's road here was longer than most. San Diego drafted him in the 4th round out of Stetson in 2007 and traded him to Cleveland three years later without ever letting him throw a big-league pitch -- part of a three-team deal built around Jake Westbrook and Ryan Ludwick that's been called one of the worst trades in Padres history ever since (the kind of deal you don't live down). Cleveland got the last laugh. Twice.

He won his first Cy Young in 2014 (18-9, 2.44 ERA, 269 K) without even making that year's All-Star team -- an All-Star snub in a Cy Young season is about as absurd as these things get -- then won a second in 2017 (18-4, an MLB-best 2.25 ERA) after a June-through-October stretch where he went 15-2 with a 1.62 ERA. In between, he started three games of the 2016 World Series against the Cubs -- shutting them out in Game 1, winning Game 4 on short rest, then getting chased in Game 7 as Chicago finally ended its 108-year drought.

Then, ironically enough given where he'd end up, the Yankees are the team that knocked him and Cleveland out of October. In the 2017 ALDS, Kluber got rocked in Game 2 (2.2 IP, 6 runs) as New York erased a five-run deficit before Cleveland walked it off in 13 innings, and got rocked again in the Game 5 elimination loss. The Yankees became just the 10th team ever to climb back from an 0-2 hole in a best-of-five series. Four years later, Kluber was wearing their uniform.

The path there wasn't pretty. A 102-mph comebacker fractured his forearm in May 2019. Cleveland traded him to Texas that December, and his Rangers debut lasted one inning before a torn teres major shut him down again. Texas declined his option and ate a $1 million buyout (cheaper than finding out the hard way twice). The Yankees bet $11 million on him anyway -- a "prove it" deal in the most literal sense -- and nine starts into 2021, Kluber proved it.

Yankees Career

May 19, 2021, at Globe Life Field is the whole story. Kluber walked one Ranger -- Charlie Culberson, on four pitches in the third -- and retired everyone else across nine innings, striking out nine on 101 pitches. DJ LeMahieu drove in the second run with a sac fly, the Yankees won 2-0, and it became the 12th no-hitter in franchise history, the first since David Cone's perfect game in 1999.

He got the nickname "Klubot" for a reason -- flat, even-keeled, no wasted motion on the mound or off it. He's said the label doesn't bother him much, and that the robotic read on his demeanor is probably a fair one; that's just what focus looks like on him. Six days after the no-hitter, that same flat delivery walked off the mound in the third inning against Toronto with a "heavy" shoulder. A subscapularis strain landed him on the IL, then the 60-day IL a week later (the no-hitter high lasted less than a week), and he didn't pitch again until August 30. He finished 2021 solid when healthy and often not healthy at all, then hit free agency. The club didn't bring him back.

What Came After

Kluber signed with Tampa Bay for 2022 and promptly torched his old team -- a 1.08 ERA over four starts against New York, including seven scoreless innings that September. A rough 2023 in Boston (3-6, 7.04 ERA) turned out to be his last MLB stop; the Red Sox declined his option, and on February 9, 2024, he announced his retirement on Instagram, "concluding a remarkable 13-season Major League Baseball journey." Thirteen seasons, two Cy Youngs, and one Bronx afternoon that outlasted all of it in the local memory.

The 2017 ALDS version of Kluber got run out of two starts by this lineup. The 2021 version walked off the Globe Life Field mound to a no-hitter in pinstripes. Baseball finds a way to even things out eventually -- just not always for the team you'd expect.