Step aside, Cy Young

Greg Maddux sets mark in San Diego Padres' 14-3 win over Philadelphia Phillies

By The Associated Press
August 25, 2007

Not even Cy Young accomplished what Greg Maddux has now done over the past 20 years.

The 40-year-old Maddux became the first pitcher to earn 10 victories in 20 consecutive seasons, tossing seven solid innings in the San Diego Padres' 14-3 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies on Friday night.

Cy Young had 19 straight seasons with double-digit wins from 1891-1909. Maddux is tied with Nolan Ryan for second behind Don Sutton for most seasons with 10 wins. Sutton had 21, but not consecutively.

"I didn't know that. That's cool," Maddux said, shrugging off his latest accomplishment.

Milton Bradley hit a pair of three-run homers and Adrian Gonzalez also connected twice for the Padres, who moved three games ahead of the Phillies in the NL wild-card race. Josh Bard had five of the Padres' season-high 22 hits.

San Diego also gained a game on first-place Arizona in the West and are two back. Philadelphia fell to six behind the New York Mets in the East and into a tie for second with Atlanta.

In other NL games, it was: Cincinnati 5, Florida 3; New York 5, Los Angeles 2; Pittsburgh 8, Houston 3, 15 innings; Atlanta 7, St. Louis 2; Colorado 6, Washington 5; Chicago 6, Arizona 2; and San Francisco 11, Milwaukee 6.

Maddux (10-9) allowed three runs and seven hits, outpitching Jamie Moyer in a matchup of 40-something hurlers with a combined 570 wins.

Benches emptied in the fourth inning when Carlos Ruiz slid hard into Padres second baseman Marcus Giles trying to break up a double play on a grounder by Abraham Nunez. Giles got up after his late relay throw to first base and immediately got in Ruiz's face, but no punches were thrown.

Ruiz's late slide into Giles' knees cost the Phillies a run. Umpires ruled interference so Nunez was out at first and Shane Victorino returned to third base, even though he scored easily on the play.

"There's playing hard and playing dirty," Maddux said.

After seeing the replay, Ruiz said he understood why Giles was angry.

"It was a little high," Ruiz said. "I was just thinking about breaking up the double play. I was just playing hard."

Giles led off the next inning and Ruiz glared in his direction, but home plate umpire Wally Bell stepped between the players to ensure nothing happened. Giles singled and left the game later in the inning with a right hip pointer.

With two outs, Bradley broke his bat and still homered to left to give the Padres a 5-3 lead. Gonzalez followed with a drive to straightaway center for his third homer in four at-bats and 23rd this season. Gonzalez hit a solo shot in the 10th inning to give San Diego a 9-8 win over the New York Mets on Thursday night.

A fielding error on third baseman Nunez kept the inning going and Bard added a two-run double to make it 8-3.

Moyer (11-10) gave up eight runs -- six earned -- and 10 hits in 4 2-3 innings. The 44-year-old left-hander has allowed 13 earned runs in his last two starts, raising his ERA from 4.68 to 5.16.

The injury-depleted Phillies have lost three of four to start an important 10-game homestand.

"It was a good game for four innings and then it got ugly," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said.

Bradley went deep off Jose Mesa in the ninth to make it 13-3.



***This was a pretty exciting game to watch. Maddux had some trouble in the first but settled in and pitched another quality start (7 innings/3 runs). Over his last several starts, Maddux has really been on it and has been blessed here recently with some good offensive support. Maddux also takes over sole position of ninth place on the all time wins list...he now has 343 wins.

The article makes mention of the bench clearing incident in the fourth and that was pretty wild situation. It was first and third with no outs...and after the interference call...instead of it being 4-2, with the Phillies winning, and a runner at first with one out...it remained 3-2 with a runner at third and two outs. That's a huge difference. I was watching the game with the Phillies feed on MLB.tv. I 'm not sure who was calling the game (it was not the legendary Harry Kalas--he was doing radio at the time of the play). Anyway...the given announcer was making me livid by being completely adamant that the hard slide was just hard nosed baseball and that there wasn't anything dirty about it. I'm not saying that I completely buy the interference call but there is no way one could argue that the slide was just a good clean, hard slide. If that would have been Josh Bard barreling into Chase Utley (the Phillies all-star second basemen) than this particular announcer would have been crying for an interference call.

Hats off to the umpiring crew for not letting the situation get out of hand. The second base umpire immediately stepped in between Giles and Ruiz and prevented a situation from getting out of control.

But there are two games left in this series so the craziness might not be over.