Yesterday, we covered a game started by Greg Maddux and ended by John Smoltz that featured three homers, but very few runs. Today, let’s stick with that, but also not stick with it. This is a game started by Greg Maddux, ended by John Smoltz, featuring five homers, but quite a lot of runs. It also features homers by some unlikely candidates. It was good fun.
The gist: The Braves jumped ahead very early thanks to... Keith Lockhart?! He scored the game’s first run on a Darren Bragg RBI triple, and then, the next inning, hit a three-run homer to give the Braves a 5-0 lead. The Reds chased Maddux with three straight two-out extra-base hits in the sixth, including a Corky Miller homer (?!?!?), but the Braves immediately hit back-to-back bombs when they got a chance. The Reds managed one more two-run homer off Smoltz in the ninth, but ended up losing by two runs.
Box scores: Baseball-Reference, Fangraphs
The set-up: The 2002 Braves were just finding their footing. After a 12-15 April, they were 4.5 games back and in fourth place in the division. But, they’d lost just one series so far in May, bringing them to one game above .500 at 25-24, and just a game out of the division lead. The 2002 Reds, however, were starting to fizzle. The Reds had a great 16-9 April, and held the NL’s best record as well as a 1.5-game division lead coming into May. But, they’d gone only 13-11 since, failing to win back-to-back series and getting seven of those 13 wins at the expense of the Brewers, who would go on to lose 106 games. They still had a two-game lead in the division, and this rubber game of a weekend series was a fairly big deal for both teams.
The Braves were relying on Maddux, who had been good-but-not-great to start 2002 (75 ERA-, 89 FIP-, 98 xFIP-). The Reds were countering with sophomore starter and eventual Brave Chris Reitsma, who had been very fortunate to post a 62 ERA-, 91 FIP-, 111 xFIP- line in his first nine starts of the year. Reitsma was riding a crazy-good run prevention streak, having allowed just one run in each of his last three starts, and more than one run just three times in those nine starts, but that 5.5% HR/FB probably couldn’t last.
How it happened: Get ready for homer-based scoring, though not in the first. Maddux gave up a liner into center on the game’s first pitch, but then worked a very democratic inning thereafter, needing 10 pitches to get three groundouts, one to first, one to second, and one to third. Getting a rare start at second in place of Marcus Giles, Keith Lockhart made the most of his opportunity in this game. He drew a one-out walk, and then scored on Darren Bragg’s triple down the right-field line. (You may be asking yourself why Bragg, a career 88 wRC+ hitter coming into 2002, was hitting third. The answer is that Gary Sheffield was banged up, and true Bobby Cox fashion, his replacement was also inserted into his lineup spot rather than any further reshuffling.) Somehow, though, neither Chipper Jones nor Andruw Jones could score Bragg; both grounded out.
The bottom of the order made the second annoying for Maddux. Aaron Boone reached on an infield single, and Corky Miller was somehow the beneficiary of a four-pitch walk. I’m not sure how to look up four-pitch Greg Maddux walks, but I’m guessing they were a very rare occurrence. In any case, Reitsma hit a first-pitch groundout to Wes Helms at first base to end the inning.
The bottom of the second was very strange. Wes Helms lined a single into left center with one out, and moved to third when Henry Blanco, Maddux’s personal catcher, split the right-center gap with a ball that bounced up and over the fence for a ground-rule double. Maddux followed his catcher with a bouncer to third that resulted in Helms getting thrown out at home. Leadoff man Rafael Furcal followed with another grounder, this time to first, and Adam Dunn, playing first with regular first baseman Sean Casey getting a day off, ranged to his right to grab it. All Dunn had to do was throw over to Reitsma, who was running towards first to end the inning with no damage, but instead, Dunn’s throw was off the mark and Reitsma couldn’t adjust to snag it. Blanco ended up scoring on the play, and the Braves had two on for Lockhart. (There’s something so, so odd about a team with Chipper and Andruw having Lockhart bat second and Bragg third.) That’s when the big blow happened: Lockhart slammed Reitsma’s 1-2 pitch into right for a three-run homer that gave the Braves a 5-0 lead.
Even with the big lead, Maddux just wasn’t super-Maddux-esque in this game. With two outs, he yielded a five-pitch walk to Ken Griffey Jr. and then had the inning extended on him further when Juan Encarnacion reached on an infield single. It took Maddux winning an eight-pitch battle with Austin Kearns via foulout to get him to finish the third. Through those three innings, he had given up five baserunners, including two walks, while collecting just one strikeout. It had taken him 51 pitches to get nine outs. Reitsma had a brief, perfect inning of his own, and Maddux followed with an 11-pitch frame in which Aaron Boone hit a one-out single into center. The Braves had a chance to add another run when Helms started the fourth with a double and Blanco’s deep fly into center moved him up a base, but Maddux and Furcal both grounded out to strand another runner at third.
Maddux had his best inning in the fifth, starting out by striking out Todd Walker and Dunn, and then getting Griffey to hit a weak comebacker on a 2-0 pitch. Reitsma worked his final inning in the bottom of the fifth, allowing a single into center to Chipper but nothing else. Reitsma finished with the strange line of six innings, five runs but only one earned (unearned runs are really dumb), one walk, zero strikeouts, and the Lockhart homer allowed. His ERA went down in the game, which... well, you get the idea.
In the sixth, the bottom of the Cincinnati order chased Maddux from the game. Maddux got the first two outs via groundout and strikeout, but Barry Larkin hit a ball down the left-field line for a double. Boone followed by a smashing a liner off the left-field wall, scoring Larkin. That brought up Miller, another eventual Brave, who got a 2-1 changeup from Maddux and jumped all over it, killing it into the left-field stands for a two-run blast. According to Miller, postgame, Maddux had gotten him to overswing and ground out on a changeup in an earlier at-bat; this time, Miller went up looking for it, got it, and didn’t miss it. That was it for Maddux, who departed ahead of the pitcher’s spot in the opposing lineup, having thrown 97 pitches. He allowed those three runs in 5 2⁄3 with a 4/2 K/BB ratio. Mike Remlinger came on and got a groundout to end the inning.
The Braves, apparently, would not abide the Corky Miller homer quietly. Mop-up type Luis Pineda came on for the Reds now that Reitsma was gone. The very first swing against him was a homer down the left-field line off Vinny Castilla’s bat that came on a hanging 1-0 curveball. A few pitches later, Helms connected for a dinger of his own, this time on a 1-2 fastball, into the left-center seats. The lead was back up to four runs. Pineda got the next three outs, including Remlinger batting for himself, but it wasn’t a great outing for him. In fact, it was the only outing in his brief, sub-replacement career in which he allowed two or more homers.
Remlinger gave up back-to-back singles to start the seventh, but then struck out Griffey and Encarnacion before Kearns popped out to Helms. The Reds were pretty much in “save the bullpen” mode at this point and let Pineda pitch another inning — he gave up a leadoff, opposite-field double to Lockhart, but then lucked out when Lockhart was thrown out trying to tag up on a fly to right. Chipper followed with another double, but the lead remained at four runs when Andruw grounded out to end the inning.
Kevin Gryboski came on for the eighth and allowed a couple of baserunners of his own: a one-out walk, followed by a single. That brought Casey in as a pinch-hitter, but both he and Walker grounded out. New reliever Carlos Almanzar threw a perfect, nine-pitch inning to send the game to the ninth.
At this point, the Braves put Smoltz into the game, mostly just to get him some work. as he hadn’t pitched in five days. (The Braves let Glavine finish a 2-0 shutout of the Expos that represented the only other opportunity for Smoltz in the last few games.) Smoltz yielded a leadoff walk to Dunn, and then got two outs in the air. Kearns then hit another fly, and this one left the park, bringing the score to 7-5. But, a fourth consecutive fly ball, this time courtesy of Larkin, ended the game when Andruw flagged it down in center.
Game MVP: Hey, let’s give it up for Keith Lockhart. He went 2-for-3 with a walk, a double, and his three-run homer. It was the first time he had multiple hits in a game since September 24, 2000, and the first time he had multiple extra-base hits in a game since around three months before that. Despite this, Lockhart finished 2002 with a 54 wRC+ and -0.3 fWAR, and had to finish his career in San Diego (where it started, in 1994) after he Braves finally opted to move on following four straight years where he mentioned more as a lovey than a productive player.
Game LVP: Chris Reitsma, who, unearned runs aside, did very little to help his team win or keep them in the game. He had some decent innings after the Reds were already in a hole, but giving up walks and homers to Lockhart just isn’t great.
Biggest play: Lockhart’s three-run homer.
The game, in context of the season: With the win, the Braves improved to 26-24 and maintained their position, a game out of first place. They’d take a share of it the following day after a 5-1 win over the Expos, and wouldn’t relinquish it afterwards, finishing with 101 wins, 19 games up on second place. The Reds, meanwhile, fell to 29-21 and were able to tread water in first place for a bit longer. But, an eight-game losing streak in mid-June knocked them from their perch; they finished below .500 in each of the last four calendar months to end with 78 wins and a third-place finish.
Maddux rebounded to put up a 3.9 fWAR season in the end. He really took off in June and July — his pitching triple slash sat at 73/90/93 through May, but was a sparkling 63/75/84 through July. He ended it at 64/82/86. Reitsma did fine as a starter for a second consecutive season (83 ERA-, 96 FIP-, 104 xFIP-) but ended up being transitioned to the bullpen once again. (He had also been shunted to relief after a bunch of starts in his rookie season in 2001.) He was primarily a reliever the following year, and then was traded to the Braves, where he spent most of the rest of his career in a relief role.
Video? Ha, nope.
Anything else? Lockhart’s five homers in 2002 were his highest single-season total since his career high of nine hit in 1998. Corky Miller finished his career with a 54 wRC+, though he had a 111 wRC+ coming into this game. Wes Helms had a 67 wRC+ coming into this game and finished the season at 74, with 0.0 fWAR. He was sent packing to the Brewers in the offseason, finishing his Braves tenure with -0.1 fWAR in 488 PAs despite 17 homers. Aaron Boone went 3-for-3 with a walk in this game, which was the first of two times during the 2002 season that he’d reach base every time across three or more PAs.
Baseball is dead to me, tell me something else cool about May 26: On this day in 1968, the entire country of Iceland made a coordinated effort to switch from driving on the left side of the road to driving on the right side. The change was actually supposed to be made earlier, but Iceland was under British military occupation during World War II, making the change impractical given that military traffic outpaced civilian traffic at the time. This followed a similar changeover in Sweden about eight months prior, which was a much bigger logistical challenge given the relative sizes of the two countries. The United Kingdom, Ireland, Malta, and Cyprus are the only remaining countries in Europe that continue to drive on the left, post-Iceland’s changeover.
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