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A major pain Mysterious injury has Maddux and the Braves worriedPosted: Tuesday April 02, 2002 12:51 PMUpdated: Wednesday April 03, 2002 11:13 PM
Click here to send a question to Tom Verducci's Baseball Mailbag. Greg Maddux is worried. Though the Atlanta Braves announced that Maddux missed his Opening Day assignment because of a strained buttocks muscle, Maddux said doctors told him he has an injured nerve in the middle of his lower back that causes stiffness and soreness in his right hip and buttocks. Braves manager Bobby Cox said Maddux is scheduled to make his season debut Sunday against the Mets, but that will depend on how the four-time Cy Young award winner fares in a bullpen session Thursday. In his last bullpen session, a tune-up before his scheduled Opening Day start, Maddux threw about 10 pitches before the pain recurred in his hips and buttocks, causing him to walk off the mound and tell pitching coach Leo Mazzone, "I can't go any more." Maddux was also unable to run on Monday because of the discomfort. Asked Monday if he was worried, Maddux said, "Yeah, because I don't know when it's going to get better. The doctor told me it'll go away, maybe all of a sudden one morning, but he can't tell me when. One day? One week? Not knowing when is what worries me." Maddux injured himself two weeks ago while making an acrobatic play behind the mound on a chopped ball in a spring training game. He was bombed for nine runs in his next start, though he said he felt fine in that game, and could pitch only one inning in his next outing. "After a while [pitching] it just locks me up," he said. "It feels like a toothache or a headache." Asked if he anticipated taking the mound Sunday, Maddux said, "It's way too early to say right now. I'll just have to see what happens each day." Maddux, who turns 36 on April 14, has thrown 3,551 innings without ever going on the disabled list. With John Smoltz taking his 97-mph heat to the bullpen, the Braves need Maddux and Tom Glavine to anchor their staff more than ever before in their 10-year run as division winners. Fellow starters Kevin Millwood, Jason Marquis and Albie Lopez were 21-32 combined last year. The Braves have no experienced starter to replace Maddux if he were to miss more time. Mazzone said the most likely choice would be Damian Moss, a 25-year-old rookie reliever with control problems. "When [Maddux] shut it down the other day, my heart jumped out of my chest,'' Mazzone said. "We think he'll be fine. I don't want to think where we'd be without him.'' Glavine ponders a future elsewhereLike Maddux, Glavine, 36, is in the final year of his contract. The veteran left-hander said he is willing to negotiate during the season, but after Monday's 7-2 win against the Phillies stated, "It's a two-way street. We'll see. I'm not going to lie and say I don't think about where I'm going to be next year. I do, especially on the good days like this when you're smiling and hope that other ballclubs notice that you can still do some things. I do think about where I'll be next year, but I'm not overly concerned.'' The Braves have kept their foundation players away from the free-agent market in recent years (Maddux, Glavine, Chipper Jones, Andruw Jones), though they did wait on Smoltz and Javy Lopez last year. With his Opening Day win, Glavine is 40-16 (.714) with a 3.12 ERA at Turner Field. Monday's victory was the 225th of his career, moving him past Hall of Famers Jim Bunning and Catfish Hunter to 56th on the all-time win list. The LineupTom Glavine's Hall of Fame chances look a lot better when his numbers are compared to those of Hunter, who was elected to the Hall on his third ballot. Consider the following career similarities, keeping in mind that each won 20 games five times and that Hunter was 9-6, 3.26 in the postseason and Glavine is 12-13, 2.97.
The rarity of homegrown acesA look at this year's 30 Opening Day pitchers reminds you how difficult it is to develop and keep front-of-the-rotation starters. Nineteen teams acquired their Opening Day starter through trade or free agency. Only 11 teams started homegrown pitchers. But nine of those 11 homegrown starters have five years or fewer of service time, which means they have not been eligible for free agency yet. (Matt Morris of St. Louis, a five-year player, would have been eligible for free agency after this season, but signed a contract extension.) That leaves only two Opening Day pitchers who have remained with their original club for at least six major league seasons: Glavine and Brad Radke of the Twins. Bagwell on the mendHouston first baseman Jeff Bagwell feared that when doctors performed offseason surgery on his right shoulder they would find a major tear in his rotator cuff, shutting him down for the season. Bagwell was relieved the news wasn't that bad, but admitted he still has not recovered from the procedure in which pins were inserted into his shoulder to stabilize the joint. "I can swing the bat,'' he said recently, "but I haven't been able to get the full extension I usually get. That's going to take time. It could be months before I get it where I want it to be.'' Astros general manager Gerry Hunsicker admitted that Bagwell's diminished arm strength is a liability on defense. "Will it cost us at a key moment in a game here or there? Probably,'' Hunsicker said. "But with everything he gives us offensively and what he means for our team, it's something we'll live with and never think twice about.'' Time to go for Tino and MoTino Martinez and Mo Vaughn were born eight days apart in December 1967. Entering this season, Martinez had 1,468 hits and Vaughn had 1,479 hits -- every one of them in the American League. Now the left-handed hitting first basemen have one more similarity: Both of the 34 year olds have switched leagues. What's in store for the Cardinals' Martinez and the Mets' Vaughn? Recent results of long-time AL players moving to the NL (all, coincidentally, left-handed hitters) reveal a mixed bag. On the plus side, Robin Ventura and Jim Edmonds improved their production in their first full NL seasons. One the down side, Lee Stevens, Shawn Green and B.J. Surhoff had worse numbers after the switch. Hitters have long considered the switch from the NL to the AL to be a tougher transition than the other way around. In the tradition of Glenn Davis and Jack Clark, former NL sluggers Andres Galarraga, Ken Caminiti and Vinny Castilla all struggled to adapt to the AL last year. Galarraga, echoing a familiar refrain, noted that there is no such thing as an obvious fastball count in the AL, where 2-and-0 is as likely to bring a breaking ball as a heater. The Big Cat said NL pitchers are more likely to challenge hitters with fastballs. Update: The formula on the spotThe Kansas City Royals let me down last year. I had them pegged as a sleeper team based on a nearly foolproof predictor developed by the Elias Sports Bureau: Teams that post a poor record in one-run games in one season and play improved baseball in spring training the next are bound to step up in class. (To qualify, a club had to be five games under .500 in one-run contests and then have a spring training winning percentage at least 100 points better than the one from the previous regular season.) When Elias ran the formula from 1980-'88, it batted 21-for-21 in predicting an improved record for those teams that qualified. From 1995-2000, the formula went 9-for-10, with improved teams winning 12 more games than they did the previous season. Ah, but that was before the 2001 Royals, the sleeper that kept on snoozing. Kansas City, last year's only qualifier for the Elias formula, actually lost 12 more games, dropping from 77-85 to 65-97. The Royals were a hard-to-believe 11-24 in one-run games. Don't worry. Their losing Grapefruit League record does not re-qualify them this year. The formula is based on two theories: Records in one-run games easily vary from year to year (tell that to the Royals' pen) and marked improvement in spring training can be a harbinger for a better season. So, I'm willing to give the formula another shot. Three teams will put it to the test this year: Baltimore, Detroit and Colorado, all terrors of the Grapefruit and Cactus leagues. The Orioles (63 victories last year), Tigers (66) and Rockies (73) are virtual locks to win more games this year than they did last year. And if they don't, this formula is a virtual lock to be permanently scrapped, just like the one for New Coke. Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci covers the baseball beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Click here to send a question to his Baseball Mailbag. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
