Maddux's return to Dodgers not stuff of legends

Maddux's return to Dodgers not stuff of legends
By Tony Jackson, Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 08/23/2008 12:11:39 AM PDT

PHILADELPHIA - The problem with having a confirmed reservation in baseball's Hall of Fame is that before you can honor it, your career has to end.

It is in that regard that not all of the game's immortals are created equal. Some of them are enshrined after walking away gracefully. Others cross their fingers, hoping no one will remember the awkwardness of that final season or two when they clearly overstayed their welcome.

It is difficult to imagine Greg Maddux falling into the latter category. Even after Friday night, when his second Dodgers debut resulted in an ugly, 8-1 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies in front of 42,620 at Citizens Bank Park.

Yes, Maddux is 42. Yes, he is in his 23 rd major-league season. Yes, the numbers suggest the legend has become a somewhat pedestrian pitcher who rarely sticks around for more than sixinnings.

And yes, Maddux did suffer a decidedly un-legend-like meltdown, leaving him with one of his most hideous pitching lines in a season when he has posted several unattractive ones.

But even if the Phillies did ignite him for seven runs on nine hits, even if catcher Chris Coste did light him up for four RBIs, and even if manager Joe Torre should have lifted him long before the game got out of reach, there was little to suggest Maddux, whom the Dodgers acquired for the stretch run for the second time in two years Monday, is in any way washed up.

"Same guy," said catcher Russell Martin, who was behind the plate for most of Maddux's dozen starts for the Dodgers in 2006, when he went 6-3 with a 3.30 ERA and helped the club earn a playoff spot. "Totally the same."

For proof of that, all you had to do was watch the first three innings, when Maddux appeared in vintage form. As Torre has pointed out on more than one occasion this week, Maddux thrives on taking advantage of whatever opening a hitter leaves him, and the free-swinging Phillies were leaving him a series of gaping holes.

By the time there were two outs in the bottom of the fourth, Maddux had faced the minimum, allowed only a harmless infield single to Geoff Jenkins and thrown a grand total of 28 pitches.

And then - as if to remind everyone that for a quadragenarian, pitching in the majors can sometimes be akin to strolling leisurely through a minefield - the wheels came off.

First, Pat Burrell, who came in with a career average of .340 against Maddux, worked him for a 10-pitch walk.

Second, Maddux uncharacteristically started Ryan Howard off with two balls. And third, Howard, one of the most feared hitters in the league, did what Howard does.

The two-run, opposite-field blast, Howard's 34 th of the season, landed several rows deep in left field, turning a 1-0 Dodgers lead into a 2-1 deficit.

Before Torre finally came to get him two innings later, Maddux would give up five more runs on five more hits, and a Dodgers team that suddenly seems as punchless as it was before the rejuvenating arrivals of Casey Blake and Manny Ramirez had no shot of coming back.

Coste's three-run homer in the sixth, making it 7-1, chased Maddux from the game.

"I don't think (Burrell's walk) took something out of (Maddux)," Torre said. "He was very economical, pitch-count wise. Unfortunately, he was just in there one hitter too long. Four-one at that point in time was still a winnable game for us."

And the National League West is still a winnable division for the second-place Dodgers (65-63), too, but the fact they now have lost three of their past four games while scoring a total of 10 runs means they are leaving themselves little margin for error as the season nears its final five weeks. That is a fact Maddux (6-10) was keenly aware of as he took the mound for this one.

"I would have liked to have started out a little bit better, obviously," he said. "But I couldn't keep the ball in the park. You have to keep the ball in the park no matter where you pitch. When you give up five runs on two swings, it's hard to win."





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