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Aces low Braves starter gets battered for second straight game
ST. LOUIS (AP) -- John Smoltz, where are you? Tom Glavine didn't do any better than Greg Maddux, and now the Atlanta Braves are one loss from missing the NL Championship Series for the first time in a decade. "It's hard to believe what you're seeing with the way these two games have gone," Atlanta pitching coach Leo Mazzone said after Thursday's 10-4 loss to St. Louis. "We're so spoiled with the great pitching we've had over the years." Glavine, a two-time Cy Young Award winner and five-time 20-game winner, was battered for seven runs in 2 1/3 innings, and the Braves fell behind 2-0 in the best-of-five NL Division Series. "Getting yourself in a hole, getting behind in the count, obviously makes your job tougher," Glavine said. "Not a lot of things are going well for us right now." During the season, Maddux and Glavine are among baseball's best pitchers, with Maddux going 240-135 and Glavine compiling a 208-125 mark. But in postseason play, Maddux is 10-11; Glavine 10-12. Smoltz, out for the year following elbow surgery last spring, is 14-4 in the postseason, including 4-0 in the division series. He was at Busch Stadium, unable to do anything but watch. In Tuesday's series opener, Maddux gave up six runs in the first inning for the first time in 491 career starts, and Atlanta lost 7-5. Then, when the Braves needed a win to tie the series, Glavine was sent to his quickest exit in 255 starts since August 1993, failing to hold a 2-0 first-inning lead. And it was reminiscent of his start against Pittsburgh in Game 6 of the 1992 NLCS, when he allowed eight runs -- seven earned -- in two innings. "It took him nine years (actually eight) to have another game like that," Mazzone said. So far, all Maddux and Glavine have added up to this series is runs and hits: a combined 12 earned runs and 15 hits in 6 1/3 innings for a 17.05 ERA. When the Braves won three straight in 1996 to overcome a 3-1 deficit and beat the Cardinals 4-3 in the NLCS, Smoltz, Maddux and Glavine won the final three games. "It's exactly the same thing," Atlanta manager Bobby Cox said. "We've got to win three in a row. We did it then and we still have very good pitching." Cox hasn't announced his starting pitcher for Game 3, but since Andy Ashby pitched 1 2/3 innings in relief Thursday, Kevin Millwood (10-13) appears the likely choice.
If Millwood doesn't pitch well, the Braves will experience something new: watching the NLCS from home.
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