Rod Barajas
FameRank: 4

"Rodrigo "Rod" Richard Barajas" is a Mexican American former professional baseball catcher. He played in Major League Baseball for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Texas Rangers (baseball)/Texas Rangers, Philadelphia Phillies, Toronto Blue Jays, New York Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers and Pittsburgh Pirates. Barajas has also played with the Mexico national baseball team.

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R.A. is the kind of person who will battle through it if there are bumps in the road. He has set his mind on making it with the knuckleball, and he has already come a long way with it. You have to admire what he is doing and how he is doing it.

I think . . . we started from way behind. Slowly, gradually, it is starting to get there. With the job that (Mets GM) Omar Minaya's doing, and other guys that are coming up, I think it's going to open up more doors for Latin guys and African-Americans in the front office.

The young pitchers have struggled some, but they need to go out there and establish themselves. If you want to be around next year, you have to go out and pitch. That's the bottom line. I hope we continue doing that and these guys develop into quality guys on our staff.

Right now, we have to throw more fastballs and changeups on the verge of a walk, and that's not where we want to be. We want to be where, if we're behind in the count, we have the confidence to throw the knuckleball for a strike and not have to give in.

It's a quality pitch. I had a hard time catching it, and that's a good sign. When a catcher struggles trying to hold on to the knuckleball, that's what you want. That's tells you it's a good pitch.

Whenever you play teams fighting for the playoffs, good quality teams, you want to try to win series, and we were able to do that here.

Catcher comes of age.

That's the most life I've seen in El Duque's fastball, but he seemed to lose it after 100 pitches.

It's great to set records. We have a team that hits from top to bottom. For me to be the guy to set that record, I'm excited.