A's dealt Kazmir to his hometown Houston Astros at the 2015 trade deadline, and he signed a three-year, $48 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers after the season. While he won 10 games for the Dodgers in , a series of injuries kept him from pitching in the major leagues in 2017, and he did not pitch professionally at all in 2018 or 2019. He began another comeback attempt in 2020 with an independent minor league team, and he returned to the major leagues in with the San Francisco Giants, for whom he appeared in four games. Also in 2021, Kazmir was selected as a member of the United States national baseball team for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, where he started and won the quarterfinal game. High school career Kazmir attended Cypress Falls High School in Harris County, Texas. He played both varsity baseball and junior varsity football at the school until his junior year, when he decided to focus on baseball to great success. During one stretch on the high school baseball diamond, Kazmir threw five no-hitters in six games: four consecutive no-hitters, then a one-hit game, then another no-hitter. As a senior, he struck out 172 batters in 75 innings pitched and had an earned run average (ERA) of 0.37. Kazmir was recruited by several major college baseball programs and verbally committed to play for the Texas Longhorns baseball team. However, after he was drafted in the first round (15th overall) of the 2002 MLB draft by the New York Mets, he decided to sign a professional baseball contract and did not attend college. His high school teammate Clint Everts was selected 5th overall by the Montreal Expos, and they became the first pair of pitchers from the same high school team to be drafted in the first round. Professional career Minor Leagues and trade to Tampa Bay Kazmir quickly advanced through the lower level of the Mets' minor league system. He led the minor leagues in strikeouts per nine innings in 2003 and was promoted to the Binghamton Mets of the Class AA Eastern League in July during his second full season of pro baseball. A few weeks later on July 30, he was traded along with minor league pitcher Joselo Díaz to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in exchange for veteran starting pitcher Víctor Zambrano and minor league reliever Bartolomé Fortunato. The trade was