José Urquidy


José Luis Urquidy is a Mexican professional baseball pitcher for the Houston Astros of Major League Baseball. Urquidy signed with the Astros as an international free agent in 2015 under the name of Jose Luis Hernandez, and was known as such until before the start of the 2019 season. He made his major league debut in July 2019.

Career

Urquidy signed with the Houston Astros as an international free agent in March 2015. He made his professional debut that same year, and spent his first professional season with both the Greeneville Astros and Tri-City ValleyCats, pitching to a combined 2-1 record and 3.35 ERA in innings. He pitched 2016 with the Quad Cities River Bandits and Lancaster JetHawks, posting a 6-5 record and 2.94 ERA in 24 games.
Urquidy missed 2017 recovering from Tommy John surgery. He returned in 2018 and pitched for Tri-City and the Buies Creek Astros, going 2-2 with a 2.35 ERA in 13 games. He started 2019 with the Corpus Christi Hooks before being promoted to the Round Rock Express.
On July 2, 2019, the Astros promoted him to the major leagues. He made his debut that night in a start versus the Colorado Rockies, pitching innings. In 2019 he was 2-1 with a 3.95 ERA, as in 9 games he pitched 41.0 innings.
On October 26, 2019 in Game 4 vs. the Washington Nationals, Urquidy started for the Houston Astros making him just the third Mexican born World Series starting pitcher. He threw 5 innings, giving up 2 hits while striking out 4. With the Astros winning the game, Urquidy became the second Mexican-born pitcher to win a World Series game after Fernando Valenzuela.

Personal life

Prior to changing his last name before the 2019 season, he went by José Luis Hernández.