Trevor Hoffman was an unknown 25-year-old with only two saves under his belt when the San Diego Padres obtained him in a controversial five-player deal in May of 1993. His was one of the big trades of the Padres' "fire sale" that year as they dumped as many big salaries as they could.
Fourteen years later, the 39-year-old righty trotted out to AC/DC's "Hell's Bells", as usual in the ninth inning. Nomar Garciaparra led off with a double, but Hoffman retired the side for his 18th save in 20 chances this season for a 5-2 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.
David Wells and Heath Bell hoisted Hoffman on their shoulders, surrounded by his teammates and carried him off the field to celebrate his big league-record 500th career save.
Hoffman acknowledged the berserk, standing crowd and commenced the toasting and champagne-drinking in the clubhouse.
Geoff Blum drove in four runs to aid Greg Maddux's sharp outing, and the win kept the Padres in first place in the NL West. San Diego has won four straight and nine of 11. The newest Padre, Hiram Bocachica was on with a double ahead of each of Blum's hits. He also drove in a run in the third.
Jeff Kent had three hits for the Dodgers, including a solo homer off Maddux who has won five straight home starts. He held the Dodgers to two runs on five hits over 6.1 innings, walking one with no strikeouts for his 338th career victory.
Los Angeles starter Randy Wolf lasted five innings, and was handed his first loss since April 30th. He allowed five runs and eight hits, struck out six and walked three.
2 comments:
All hail the Hoff!
Ha!
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