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Yankees vs. A's |
Mariners vs. White Sox |
Braves vs. Cardinals |
Mets vs. Giants
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Monday, October 9
Braves' Big Two going down for the count
By Jayson Stark
ESPN.com
ST. LOUIS -- Glavine and Maddux. Maddux and Glavine.
The ultimate ace. The ultimate assistant ace.
But for the Atlanta Braves these last eight seasons, they've been more than
that.
Other Braves have come. Other Braves have gone. One thing has never
changed.
Glavine and Maddux. Maddux and Glavine.
In those rare moments when the U.S.S. Atlanta began to veer off
course, one of them -- often both of them -- always showed up to grab the
wheel and dodge the icebergs. But this week in Busch Stadium, something
truly astonishing has happened:
|  | | Tom Glavine allowed seven or more runs on only one other occasion this season prior to Thursday's outing. |
In Games 1 and 2 of the National League Division Series, the St.
Louis Cardinals have treated the great Greg Maddux and the great Tom Glavine
as if they were Jaime Navarro and Kyle Farnsworth.
It seemed almost impossible for Glavine to go out Thursday in Game 2
and top the sight of Maddux giving up seven runs to the Cardinals in four
innings in Game 1 -- six of those runs in the first inning. But it happened.
Glavine took a 2-0 lead to the mound with him before he ever threw a
pitch. When he departed, 53 pitches later, he'd given up as many runs as
he'd gotten outs -- seven.
There wasn't much need for the Cardinals to even play out their 10-4
wipeout of the Braves after that. This game was over when Glavine headed for
the showers.
The bigger question was: Is this series over?
The Cardinals now lead it, two games to none. Which means, for one
thing, that a Braves team that went 15-2 over its first five NL Division
Series has gone 0-2 in this one.
But it also means that if the Braves want to advance to their ninth
consecutive National League Championship Series, they need to win three
games in a row.
"It's just a three-game winning streak," said Chipper Jones. "But
when you say that, it sounds like it's an every-day occurrence. It's not
that easy."
And the Braves themselves proved it wasn't that easy this year. In
August and early September, they went through a five-week, 33-game stretch
in which they had exactly one three-game winning streak. So it's not as if
they can just snap their fingers and rip off another one.
Of course, in another October, they were once in an essentially
identical situation -- trailing, three games to one, in the '96 NLCS, against
a team wearing these same Cardinals uniforms. And that October, they did, in
fact, win three in a row, by a combined score of 32-1.
"But the only guys left from that team are me and a couple of
coaches," said St. Louis' Ray Lankford. "This team is different than the '96
team."
And just as significantly, the Braves aren't the '96 Braves, either.
That team had Mr. October, John Smoltz, to start Game 5 (and throw seven
overpowering shutout innings). All you need to know about the depth of this
Braves team's rotation is that this team almost certainly will bring Maddux
back to start Saturday on three days' rest.
But if they do that, they are only doing what has come so naturally
all these years. And especially this year.
Maddux and Glavine. Glavine and Maddux.
When the rest of us have an emergency, we call 9-1-1. When the
Braves have an emergency, they call Maddux or Glavine. But these last two
games have reminded us of one important fact of life:
Just because they're so used to having that boulder on their shoulder
doesn't mean it isn't heavy.
"It's hard to believe what we're seeing," said their long-time
pitching coach, Leo Mazzone, "with the way these two games have gone,
because we're so spoiled. ... It kind of blows your mind a little bit. You
sit in the dugout saying, 'What the hell's going on?' "
What's going on is simple. The Cardinals have played against the
Braves the way the Braves' five previous Division Series opponents played
against them.
And what's also going on is that Maddux and Glavine have had two
back-to-back games in this series unlike any other they've had in their long
and distinguished Braves careers. You could look it up. And we did:
Just in the first inning of these two starts,
they've given up nine runs. In their 14 previous back-to-back postseason
starts, the most they'd ever given up was five. In their 188 previous
regular-season back-to-back starts, the most they'd ever given up was seven
-- and those were at Coors Field.
Meanwhile, the 14 runs they've allowed in these two
games also equaled the most they'd ever given up in any of the 202 previous
occasions they've started for this team back-to-back. And the only other
time they gave up 14, it was in those two starts in Denver, on June 7 and 8,
1996 (when they allowed 14 runs in 8 1/3 innings).
Equally stunning is the fact that both of them gave
up more runs than innings pitched in these two starts. And in their Braves
career, they'd never done that back-to-back, either.
So what the Cardinals have done to these guys over the last two games is as
historic as it has been astounding.
"Let me tell you," Mazzone said. "Having those two guys is the best
feeling you can have as a pitching coach. And I've been able to have the
greatest feeling in the world these last nine years, as far as who was going
to start these postseason games. You feel great about it when those two go
out there. That's why, when things don't go the way you want, like they have
the last two games, you're in shock mode."
And if he was in shock mode, you could hardly blame him. These were
the Braves' 96th and 97th postseason games since 1991. And never had any two
of their starters given up this many runs back-to-back. (Previous high: 12,
by Steve Avery and Glavine in Games 5 and 6 of the 1992 NLCS against
Pittsburgh.)
On Tuesday, not all of those seven runs were Maddux's fault. A
ground ball to first hit the bag. Andruw Jones didn't catch a fly ball.
Chipper Jones didn't catch a ground ball. Catcher Paul Bako threw one into
center field. It was a mess not entirely of Maddux's making.
But in this game, Glavine was constantly behind, left way too many
pitches over the middle of the plate and paid the price. Will Clark mashed a
changeup into the bullpen for a three-run homer in the first. Carlos
Hernandez hit a solo bomb in the second. Then Ray Lankford's two-run double
made it 7-2 in the third and finished Glavine's afternoon.
It was his shortest outing in seven years (since Aug. 19, 1993). It
was his shortest postseason outing since a three-out exit in Game 6 of the
'92 NLCS. And it was his first loss to the Cardinals in five years (since
June 10, 1995). He was 7-0 in eight starts since.
Asked if this was as disappointing as any game he'd ever pitched,
Glavine never hesitated.
"Sure it is, because of the circumstances," he said. "You never want
to pitch poorly. But obviously, you especially don't want to pitch poorly in
a postseason start where your team really needs a win."
He ticked off the reasons the Braves have dug themselves this hole.
But when he was finished, he couldn't help but conclude: "It starts with
pitching." And it has.
Except in Atlanta, everything starts with pitching. Always has.
Always will.
We take that for granted now, after all these years. But the men who have to
take the baseball don't take it for granted, because they understand the
weight of the responsibility they've had to lug around for all those trips
to the hill.
"It's difficult," Glavine admitted, "because if you don't go out and
perform perfectly, everyone wants to know what's wrong. It's not an easy
thing to live with all the time. Any time pressure is put on you to go out
and do something, that's a difficult task. But we've done it an awful lot.
And that's where the expectations come from."
But they also come from these men themselves, because they're not
just your ordinary heavers of the baseball. They're leaders, and they're
winners. And they have come to accept all that entails.
"I like being out there in those pressure situations," Glavine said,
"just because I'd rather play than watch. I like being the guy your
teammates are counting on. I relish the opportunity to come through in those
situations. Most of the time, it's gone pretty well. But some of the times,
it hasn't. And today, unfortunately, was one of those times."
Around him, the National League's team of the '90s dressed in
striking silence. Sooner or later, their era was bound to end. And if this
isn't the end, it might well be the beginning of the end.
Glavine is 34 now. Maddux is 33. Smoltz is coming off Tommy John
surgery.
No one pitches forever. No team wins forever.
But this isn't about forever. This is about now. This is about
winning three games in a row with nothing but a whole season's work on the
line.
"We're going to find out a lot about ourselves now," said Tom
Glavine.
But unfortunately for them, they may already have done that.
Jayson Stark is a senior writer at ESPN.com.
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