It was a great day for Smoltz. As has already been mentioned in the blog, he achieved the milestone of 3000 strikeouts. Only 15 other pitchers in all of baseball have matched that accomplishment. He will forever by immortalized along side other greats like Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens, Don Sutton, and Phil Niekro. That is a heady group, that Smoltz belongs with. Congratulations, John.
The bats, after several good days, decided to stay home, so there is not a lot to report. Escobar had 2 hits, both were singles. Diaz, also 2 singles. Sadly, KJ, Chipper, Tex, McCann and Kotsay all went 0 for…
While John Smoltz got his 3000th K, he also got hung with the loss, a totally unfair one at that. He had a fantastic outing. He went 7 innings, allowing only five hits, striking out TEN. But, on a night like this one, the one run he gave up was enough to give him the loss. The pen was ineffective, but started out well. Boyer pitched .2 innings, only allowing one hit. Ring did his job after than, getting out the lefty. But, it went down hill from there. Campillo was shaky, but looked like he was out of the inning until he mishandled a ground ball that should have been a double play. He never recovered. Eventually 5 of his runners scored, but only one earned. Resop was brought in to put out the fire. But, after a hit and a walk he finally ended the inning, and for all intents and purposes, the game.
Tommorrow’s game 7:10 PM. Not nationally televised.
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