The Book On Maddux

Keeping Count The consensus among those who have batted well against Greg Maddux in their careers is that you had better hit him early in the count because he'll eat you alive if he gets you in a hole. Through Sunday, Maddux had pitched to 523 batters this season, and a look at what they had done on every count confirms the basic wisdom of going after the first pitch. Hitters had batted .264 on the first pitch and a surprising .306 on an 0-and-l count. But as the numbers show, let Maddux get two strikes on you, and you don't stand a chance. Here's the complete breakdown:
COUNT	PITCHES	AB	HITS	HR	AVG.
0-0	523	87	23	1	.264
0-1	260	49	15	0	.306
0-2	130	55	5	0	.091
1-0	171	39	11	1	.282
1-1	190	53	18	2	.340
1-2	160	67	7	0	.104
2-0	46	11	4	0	.364
2-1	81	29	7	0	.241
2-2	121	71	11	1	.155
3-0	11	0	0	0	—
3-1	20	7	3	0	.429
3-2	44	30	2	0	.067
Total	1757	498	106	5	.213
Source: Stats, Inc.

If I could have hit against Greg Maddux every game, I'd be in the Hall of Fame," says Jeff Wetherby, nearly nine years after his long-forgotten encounter with Maddux on Sept. 2, 1989. Wetherby stepped into the batter's box on that warm Atlanta evening as a Braves pinch hitter against Maddux , then a member of the Chicago Cubs , with one out in the sixth inning. On a 2-and-1 count, Maddux threw a letter-high fastball and Wetherby swung through it, flailing so wildly that he tore his batting glove. At that moment Wetherby remembered how he had been ribbed unmercifully about his slow bat speed by Cubs catcher Rick Wrona, who had been one of his teammates in winter ball the previous off-season and was now behind the plate catching Maddux . So Wetherby choked up an inch or two and anticipated another heater. That's when Maddux committed a rare mistake. He threw a belt-high inside fastball that Wetherby launched 409 feet over the centerfield wall. The fact that Maddux and Chicago led 10-1 at the time is a trivial footnote...at least to Wetherby.

Wetherby had just 48 major league at bats, all of them in '89. He got only 10 hits and finished his brief big league career with a .208 average. But Wetherby owns a unique distinction. He batted just once against the best pitcher of his generation, and he hit a home run. "If you're only going to have one homer, it might as well be against Cy Young ," says Wetherby, who returned to the minors in '90 and retired two years later. "There's no doubt in my mind that I own Greg Maddux . He's never, ever gotten me out, and he never will."

Wetherby is a member of an endangered species, a hitter who is proud of his record against Maddux in a world full of men who have failed to hit their weight against him. Like a broken record, Maddux just keeps repeating himself. At the rate he's going, he will win an unprecedented fifth Cy Young Award this year. ( Steve Carlton and Roger Clemens are the only other pitchers to have won four.) He was 11-2 with a 1.64 ERA at week's end and could easily have been 13-2 if not for some shaky bullpen work. In his last 12 starts he had been especially impressive, with a 9-0 record and a 1.27 ERA. He had not allowed more than three runs in any of those outings and had handed the Baltimore Orioles their first shutout in 129 games. For the season, opponents were hitting just .213 against him.

Well, enough is enough. As a public service to all major league hitters—especially the truly hapless like Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Eric Karros (2 for 27 lifetime against Maddux ), Dodgers shortstop Jose Vizcaino (3 for 27) and St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Ron Gant (8 for 50 with 13 strikeouts)—SI recently launched a nationwide investigation into the secret of hitting Maddux . Our sources? The select few players who maintain bragging rights against Maddux in their careers.

So how exactly do you hit a guy who pitches each game as if he were filming an instructional video? To start with, remember that patience is not a virtue. This season Maddux has thrown a first-pitch strike 67.1% of the time. That means the first pitch is one of the best hitter's pitches the batter will see (chart, page 46). "He's always going to be around the plate, so I try to be really aggressive against him," says Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Al Martin , who has hit .361 in 36 career at bats against Maddux . "Once he gets you deep in the count, he can carve you up, and when he gets two strikes on you, you're done."

Indeed, why wait? Through Sunday, Maddux had walked only 16 hitters this season; in one April stretch he faced 94 straight batters without issuing a free pass. He rarely even falls behind in the count. In a complete-game, four-hit, 6-2 victory over the Florida Marlins on June 17, Maddux threw three balls to a batter just once. For the season, he has thrown only 44 pitches on a 3-and-2 count and in those situations, batters have gotten just two hits.

While it is easy to understand why Clemens or Kerry Wood can dominate a game with overpowering fastballs, Maddux's foes point out that he doesn't have an intimidating fastball, curveball or slider. Instead they must combat his ball movement, change of speeds and location, location, location. "He throws a ball that looks like it's a foot and a half outside, and it breaks [back] over the outside corner with pinpoint accuracy," says Kansas City Royals outfielder Jeff Conine , a righthanded hitter who played the last five seasons in the National League and has hit .357 in 28 at bats against Maddux. "You've got to be able to control that outside corner by scooting up on the plate a little bit and looking to rightfield."

Naturally, as soon as you devise a strategy that seems to succeed against Maddux, he'll change the game. Braves manager Bobby Cox calls him the smartest player he's ever known, and others have called him the shrewdest scout in the sport. Nicknamed the Professor, Maddux admits that he looks for subtle signs in a hitter's behavior, such as the way a batter's back foot opens up slightly when he's trying to hit to the opposite field. "Maddux constantly changes his approach," says Colorado Rockies catcher Jeff Reed, a lefthanded hitter who has hit .317 in 60 at bats against Maddux. "So one at bat I might say I'm going to wait on the ball a long time and take him the other way, but if he's busting me inside, I'm going to change. It's a guessing game, and he probably knows me better than I know me."

Maddux seems to have a photographic memory, so five years later he still remembers the time he made a batter look bad on a certain pitch, and he'll fool him with it again. Many hitters also swear he's clairvoyant. "Sometimes I would see the sign and think, Why's he throwing that pitch?" says former Braves second baseman Mark Lemke , who's now with the Boston Red Sox . "Then the batter will pop it up. He'll work to a hitter's strength, only not when he's expecting it. It's like he knows what the hitter is looking for, so he throws the opposite."

Says Maddux, "In order to be a good pitcher, you've got to think like a hitter. Why do you think I sit beside our hitting coach every game when I'm not pitching? It ain't because I like him so much."