Maddux's 350 wins won't carry an asterisk

It's only ninth on the all-time list, but the next pitcher to accomplish what Greg Maddux did on Saturday night probably hasn't even been born yet.

Heck, in an age of pitch counts and six-man starting rotations, it might not ever happen again. Maddux, 42, won his 350th career game, a 3-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies on Saturday night in San Diego.

In a drug-enhanced era when all the records will be questioned, Maddux's accomplishments won't be, Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post wrote:

"Now, when we look at numbers, the stats can tell us an entirely different story. We discover that, for players such as Maddux, there is circumstantial evidence of honesty.

"The season when [Roger] Clemens was 36, his ERA was 4.60; Maddux's was 2.62. After that, Clemens somehow pitched younger, going 18-4 at 41, then posting a preposterous 1.87 ERA at 42. Now, from baseball's own report, we assume we know part of the reason. Maddux, on the other hand, got old just as players had for the previous century. In his last five full seasons, his ERA has ranged from 3.96 to 4.24, yet he's still averaged 15 wins a year (14-11 in '07). His diminishing fastball has, at times, barely broken 80 mph."

There are 11 active pitchers that are within 200 wins of Maddux, and all are at least 35 years old. Put it this way: If C.C. Sabathia averages 18 wins for the next 13 seasons, which is a high estimate for anybody, he still won't be equal Maddux, and he'll be 40.

And it's another victory for the 1-2-3 punch of the Atlanta Braves' great staff of the 1990s: Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz. Glavine and Smoltz are on the disabled list right now.

"There's never been a better one-two-three on a staff - ever," the Braves' Chipper Jones told the Sporting News about the trio's 863 wins, plus 154 saves by Smoltz. "When I look back, playing with them will be the good old days."