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One For The Record Books

Much like Msrs. Rodriguez and Bonds, I was feeling the pressure of approaching a milestone and it took me a few days to get comfortable again. Behold our 500th post...

Congratulations to Tom Glavine on win number 300, which I presume will go down as the second-best day he's had as a big league pitcher so far in his career (No. 1 being winning the clinching game of the World Series in 1995).

I would presume it would also go down as the second-best day he's had as a big league hitter, since he had a key RBI and a nice sacrifice to help the offensive cause on Sunday.

I'm guessing his number one day as a major-league hitter came on August 10, 1995, the anniversary of which is forthcoming. That would be the day that Glavine hit his only major-league home run. That day, the Braves were playing the Cincinnati Reds in what turned out to be a playoff preview and a matchup of the two best teams in the National League.

If you'd watched the first inning, you'd have wondered how Glavine survived this contest, since the game began with three walks, sandwiched around a Chipper Jones error, leading to a Reds run. But thanks to a 1-2-3 double play from Bret Boone, Glavine would escape and that run would be the lone Reds tally of the game.

The opposing moundsman that day was fellow lefty John Smiley, who some might call Glavine-esque, and for the first five innings, he was solid, allowing just one hit. He faced Glavine, who was hitless in his last 10 at-bats, leading off the sixth inning, and perhaps he got a little careless because Glavine took the first pitch out of the park, hitting it to the opposite field to even the score, 1-1.

This was one of those days where Glavine did all the work, not just at the plate, but on the mound. He got through the next two innings, but if his hope was for a victory for himself, it went for naught. Perhaps the Braves would have been wise to let Glavine hit for himself in the eighth inning, with the score still even, and a runner on second with one out, since he had the hot bat (though at 125 pitches, his day was done). Instead, Bobby Cox went to Mike Mordecai, and two flyballs later, Glavine was saddled with a no-decision.

That thus deprived Glavine of getting his 300th win at Shea Stadium. Instead, the Braves (and Mark Wohlers) went on to win in their typical Brave way, stringing together three straight singles against Hector Carrasco with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. The last came from Javy Lopez, handing Atlanta a 2-1 walk-off victory.

True Metvines know...Tom Glavine's teams are 60-11 in games in which he gets an RBI, and that includes a 34-4 mark in road games in which he gets an RBI.

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