Tonight Roger Clemens and John Smoltz were supposed to be locked in an epic picthers' duel.

Hmm…not so much

Rocket gave up a five runs in five innings including the big blast, a three-run homer to rookie catcher Brian McCann in the second that put the Braves up to stay. Smoltz at least held up his end of the deal pitching seven innings and allowing seven hits and one run.

Clemens came into the game with 341 career wins to 177 for Smoltz. Thom Brenneman at one point pontificated on why we should credit Smoltz with 250 wins, 15 for every season he was in the pen. By that logic, Doug Bair was a 300-game winner. As an aside, the Psycho Lyons-Thom Brenneman broadcast was its usual, execrable best. At one point, Brenneman actually injected the Crash Davis classic cliché "God willing" to underscore his analysis of Houston closer Brad Lidge.

Anyway, I was wondering how epochal was seeing two pitchers who embody 500+ wins between them, face off in a postseason game. So I checked…

This was just the eighth time that two men with a combined career total of 500 wins or more have faced off in the postseason (min. 150 W per pitcher). It's the first time since Jim Palmer came in in the 5th inning to defeat Lefty Carlton, 3-2, on October 14, 1983 in game three of the World Series. (as a Phillies fan, every historic event has a painful memory associated with it). It's also the first time that it's happened in any other round than the Series. Here are all of them:

(Note that in the 1911 Series, Mathewson and Plank, 514 combined wins, were on opposing teams but never pitched against each other. The same goes for Mathewson and Chief Bender, 513 wins, in the 1913 fall classic.)

Also, McCann who hit the home run off Clemens is just 21 years old. Clemens is in his 22 season.

I wondered if a pitcher has ever faced a batter who had fewer years on the planet than the pitcher had logged in a major-league dugout. I found a handful but without scouring the Retrosheet play-by-play archives, it's impossible to say: