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A gem to remember
Millwood's masterpiece evens things up for Braves
Posted: Thursday October 07, 1999 09:27 AM
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Stacked deck: The Braves' Kevin Millwood could be the ace on a staff filled with Cy Young award winners. AP |
By John Donovan, CNN/SI
ATLANTA -- In a five-game series in the baseball postseason, fortunes can turn so quickly sometimes you don't even realize they've turned.
Kind of like a Kevin Millwood curveball.
The Atlanta Braves, facing an all-too familiar abyss they didn't dare look into, turned to the 24-year-old Millwood on Wednesday afternoon and the kid delivered simply the finest performance from a Braves pitcher in their storied, recently pitching-rich history.
The one-hit gem against the Houston Astros, which the Braves turned into a 5-1 triumph at a sparsely populated Turner Field, evened the National League division series at a game apiece and sends the two teams to Houston for a pivotal Game 3 Friday afternoon in the Astrodome.
It also solidifies the young right-hander's place, perhaps strangely enough, as the ace on a staff filled with Cy Young award winners.
"I don't think he threw any cookies out there," said Houston third baseman Ken Caminiti, who smacked the only crumb that Millwood offered for a solo homer in the second inning. "I can't remember a postseason game [with a pitcher] being that dominant."
Game 2
A Closer Look |
Atlanta manager Bobby Cox moved Brian Jordan back into the cleanup slot Wednesday against the Houston Astros, and the simple move ended up paying immediate dividends.
The payoff may only be starting.
Jordan, still hampered by a sore wrist and hand, drove in two runs Wednesday, enough to help the Braves to their 5-1 win in Game 2 of the National League division series. More importantly, perhaps, is that Jordan now becomes a dangerous bat behind slugging third baseman Chipper Jones, who the Astros successfully pitched around in Tuesday's win.
Simply put, if Jordan keeps hitting, Jones is going to see more pitches to hit, too.
"When the other team said they were going to pitch around Chipper, I take that as an insult," said Jordan, officially 1-for-3 with his two RBIs. "I finally got the opportunity to do it [make the other team pay]. They walked Chipper to get to me. I hurt them."
In the seventh inning, with the Braves holding a 2-1 lead and Bret Boone on third after a one-out double and error, the Astros elected to intentionally walk Jones, who had 45 homers this year.
With runners on first and third with one out, that brought Jordan to the plate. On the first pitch from starter Jose Lima, Jordan reached down and blasted a pitch to the warning track in center field, scoring Boone. The shot was deep enough to get a hustling Jones to second, too. He scored later on a bloop single off Ryan Klesko's bat.
The long fly ball for Jordan was especially satisfying given the bad hand he has had, an injury that he suffered June 22 when he was hit on the hand by a pitch. He hit only .266 with six homers after the All-Star break -- he had 17 homers before the break -- and had to alter his swing to get back in the lineup.
"I don't take the big swing anymore," he said. "I just kind of keep it short and get more drive on the ball."
The hand and wrist are getting better every day, though, and Jordan says he is not far from letting a big swing rip every once in a while. If he gets healthy hitting behind Jones -- who was 1-for-3, too -- no one will be pitching around Jones to get to Jordan.
"I told you I would earn my No. 4 [cleanup slot] back," he said with a laugh. "Thank goodness that happened."
-- John Donovan
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How dominant? Millwood, a plain-spoken type from Gastonia, N.C., who is without a discernable nerve in his 6-foot-4 body, set two Major League postseason records with his 104-pitch masterpiece: Fewest hits in a complete game and most consecutive hitless innings, at seven.
All in his first start in the playoffs.
"Kevin is very mature for his age," said Braves pitching coach Leo Mazzone. "He's just a country boy who likes to play hardball. Tonight, he was Big Country."
The performance could not have been better timed for the Braves. Atlanta has more wins than any National League team in the '90s, but the Braves have only one World Series title (1995) to show for it. A failure here in the division series -- a place where they had never lost a single game before Tuesday -- would have been devastating.
But Millwood, whom Mazzone considers the most consistent of the staff all season -- and this is a staff that has seven Cy Young awards -- would have none of the losing talk. After Caminiti hit his homer with one out in the second, Millwood was so overpowering that he would have checked out the rest of the Astros lineup in order if not for a seventh-inning error by Braves third baseman Chipper Jones.
Millwood got the final seven batters after that, and finished with eight strikeouts. He did not give up a walk.
"When you can come out of a ballgame and say you only made one or two mistakes," Millwood said, "you usually are going to have a pretty good game."
The Braves, handcuffed Tuesday by Houston starter Shane Reynolds, finally got some offense, too, getting to 21-game winner Jose Lima for nine hits and four runs in 6 2/3 innings. Right fielder Brian Jordan drove in a pair of runs, while center fielder Andruw Jones drove in the go-ahead run with a sixth-inning double, the Braves' first extra-base hit in the series.
Atlanta broke it open with a three-run seventh. Jordan had a sacrifice fly to the warning track in center, Ryan Klesko blooped a single to left to score a run and Andruw Jones followed with a run-scoring single to left.
But by that time, it was clear the Braves had all they needed, thanks to Millwood.
"A stronger game has not been pitched against us all year," Houston manager Larry Dierker said. "We only hit two balls hard the whole game."
Millwood's killer pitch was his well-cultivated fastball, a pitch he sets up by throwing fastballs down and up and in all sorts of places that hitters can't get to them.
| Some big-time company |
| Kevin Millwood pitched the best game in Braves playoff history Wednesday. Here's a look at some of the best complete games for the Braves in the playoffs. |
| Date | Pitcher | Opponent | Line |
10/6/99
+10/22/95
*10/5/58
#10/10/14
| Kevin Millwood
Greg Maddux
Warren Spahn
Bill James
| Astros
Indians
Yankees
A's
| 9 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 8 Ks, 0 BBs
9 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 0 ER, 4 Ks, 0 BBs
9 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 7 Ks, 2 BBs
9 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 8 Ks, 3 BBs
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+ = Game 1, World Series
* = Game 4, World Series (Milwaukee Braves)
# = Game 2, World Series (Boston Braves) | | | |
He'll often follow the fastballs with a serviceable slider, then bring in the hook that helped him win 18 games this season and frustrated opposing hitters to the tune of a .202 average. That's the lowest batting average for an opponent that any pitcher in the majors sports.
"Some hitters were waiting on his curveball," catcher Eddie Perez said, pointing out that Millwood still got them. "That's how good his curveball was today."
Millwood's performance Wednesday could prompt manager Bobby Cox to throw him again in Game 4 on Saturday, if necessary, or certainly Game 5 back in Atlanta on Sunday. Tom Glavine is scheduled to go for the Braves in Game 3 Friday, against Houston's Mike Hampton.
Whenever he pitches next, this last one will be one he, and Braves fans, long remember. The last-time a pitcher threw a one-hitter or less in a complete postseason game was 32 years ago, when Jim Lonborg did it for the Boston Red Sox on Oct. 5, 1967.
If you're counting, that's almost seven years before Millwood was born.
Though he admitted to a few nerves in the eighth inning, Millwood took it all rather cooly after the game. His teammates have rarely, if ever, seen the guy show any nervousness.
"Millwood?" asked pitcher Greg Maddux. "I'm just glad he don't play poker."
Millwood threw a one-hitter in his rookie year last season, when he won 17 games. Still, with his team in dire need of a killer game, Millwood knew this may well be the watershed game that gets him mentioned with the best pitchers in the game.
"I think we needed a big win today," he said. "It was probably the biggest game I have pitched in, so I would have to say it is my best performance ever."
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