The Cubs beat the Giants 8-4, but no one will remember the score, only that Greg Maddux was the winning pitcher for the 300th time in his illustrious 19 year career. Of course more than two-thirds of those wins came for the Braves as they dominated the NL in the regular season during the 90's. So with that in mind, now the question everyone has is when the next guy will do it or if anyone ever will reach 300 again. Sure, his former Brave teammate and current Met pitcher Tom Glavine is at 259 which doesn't seem that far away until you consider he is, like Maddux, 38 years old. Can he really pitch three more seasons? He can't get there in two, because even if he gets 3 more this year that would mean an average of 19 wins for a guy who has done that just twice in his past 11 seasons. He certainly won't get that many with the Mets. I give him an outside shot because he could take less money to pitch for a team willing to let him set the mark with them in 2006, should he be close enough.

Randy Johnson is next on the active list with 241, but he is 41 years old and let's be realistic he is not going to pitch until he is 45, is he? Could he be the next Nolan Ryan? Well, who knows, but I doubt it. He has his name towards the top of plenty of the lists for pitchers all-time I don't think he needs 300.

A guy much more likely to get this is Yankee Mike Mussina who is currently stuck on 208 from the disabled list. At 35, this is really the first season he has missed a lot of time due to injury, but if he can stay healthy for 5 seasons with New York it is not unreasonable to expect him to reach the 92 wins required. They are a team that you can win 18 for even with an ERA in the 4.00-4.25 range and he could be their fourth starter towards the end of that run. I give him pretty good odds, barring injury, to make it.

It's no surprise that the Yanks also have the next guy on the list, Kevin Brown at 206, but at 39 he has about the same odds as Randy Johnson who NY tried to acquire at the deadline.

The great Pedro Martinez is at 178 and is "only" 32 (turns 33 in October) but he hasn't shown the desire to pitch a lot longer. He seems to be too arrogant to pitch when he is not totally dominant and if this year's current 3.94 ERA is any indication (the high of his previous 5 seasons was a mere 2.39) those times might be over pretty soon.

Another guy who could get there, but might need a change of venue is Andy Pettitte. Having just hit 32 he is sitting on 155 wins. The problem is that many of the stars for the Astros are getting old and he might need to switch to a contender if he is going to get there.

The start of the younger guys is Oakland's Tim Hudson who turned 29 last month and has 87 wins. He has lost about 15 wins to the bullpen over the last year and a half or he'd be past the century mark. Still, if he can start translating his solid starts into wins (or get acquired by the Yankees) he could get there. Still, it would take an average of 19 wins over 11 seasons to do it. I don't know if his slightly build frame can hold up over the years.

His teammate Mark Mulder has a much better chance. He has won an impressive 57% of his starts, which over full seasons will translate to 17. At 27 (last week was his birthday) and 79 wins he is in pretty good position. Again, it would take him averaging 17 until age 40 which seems like the magic number for all of these guys.

The last contender is also part of Oakland's Big Three, Barry Zito. He is the youngest at 26 and is also struggling this year. However, he is at 68 and has a 23-5 season under his belt. If he can rip off a few 20+ win seasons he could quickly be in range to get there by age 38.

Those are the contenders, anyone I missed?