Bound for the Hall
Forty-year-old John Smoltz pitched seven shutout innings tonight to give the Braves a 2-1 victory over the Mets, bringing Atlanta within a game and a half of the New York in the NL East.
The win was Smoltz’s seventh of the season, which leads the National League, but more importantly, was the 200th of his illustrious career.
Smoltz became the 106th pitcher in Major League history to reach the 200 win mark, but is the first pitcher ever to get 200 wins and save at least 150 games.
Although milestones probably shouldn’t be such a big deal statistically, they are a big deal in the minds of Hall of Fame voters, and Smoltz almost certainly cemented his place in the Hall with his victory tonight.
I’ve always been a Smoltz fan, partially because he’s the only player who has been around for Atlanta’s entire run of 14 division titles but also because he is one of the nicest players in the game, and I’m glad that he is getting the recognition and acclaim that he deserves.
4 comments:
He had some pretty amazing defense played behind him last night, especially by Renteria. It's nice that he had to earn his way during his 200th victory — instead of, say, throwing 5 innings and giving up 4 runs. Poor Glavine; he'd have been at 300 if he would have stayed with the Braves.
Yeah, going to NY has not been a good career move for Glavine. He's 53-50 with them (with only marginally higher ERAs) and has dropped his career winning percentage from about .630 to about .605.
He'd probably have about 307 wins or so if he was still with us, and with the kind of season he had last year, our streak of division titles might’ve still been intact.
He should get in. If he can have a few more productive years and get the wins over 230, I'd say he is first ballet.
Kenny,
I agree. It will be interesting to see how long he pitches. Supposedly, he has been working on a knuckleball for a fews years, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he extended his career a while by throwing it.
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