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This past Friday, Tim Hudson pitched two hitless innings against Detroit. The Braves right-hander walked a batter and needed just 10 pitches during his outing. Hudson is just three wins away from 200 careers wins. The Braves’ starting rotation will feature four players under the age of 31 to start the season. Can the veteran 37-year-old lead the Braves rotation this season? Hudson explains his expectations in the following interview. Tim Hudson joined WCNN in Atlanta with Buck and Kincade to discuss being three wins away from 200 careers wins, the keys to being a successful starting pitcher, prolonging his career to continue to pitch for championship-caliber teams, competing with the Washington Nationals and avoiding the wild card play-in game.You are three wins away from 200 careers wins. What are your thoughts?“It’s going to be a lot of fun. I am just glad that I have been able to play this game long enough to log some innings and log some wins and play for some really good teams to help me get those wins, and hopefully it can happen this first month of the season.”
What’s the keys to having so much success?
“I don’t know. Just stay down in the zone and play for some really good teams [laughs].” With a 15-win season this year, you are going to pass some pretty big names on the 200-win list. What is that like?“I tell you man, I have been very blessed to be relatively healthy most of my career. I think I played for some good teams and played for a long time. I never dreamed that I’d have the kind of career and as long of a career that I have had. I have been blessed and hopefully — I don’t want to say that I see the end coming. I’d be fooling you, but I feel like I can play for a while and hopefully I can still log in some wins and still pitch towards a top of a rotation for a championship-caliber team and stay around for a little bit longer.”
How do you compete with the Washington Nationals this year?
“They are a tough club. They are really good. They are really balanced. They have really taken some positive steps over the last couple of years. [Host: Is it a developing rivalry?] Yeah, I think it is. I think it’s one of those things where obviously you are always going to — it’s hard ’cause our division, except for Florida , our division right now is competitive, that you could put your finger on any team and say that’s a big rival now. It used to always be the Mets and a few years ago it was the Phillies when they were kicking everyone’s tail. Now it seems like everyone is going to be gunning for the Nationals and obviously there’s going to be a lot of great competition in our division. Those guys are really good. It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be challenging, there’s no question, but I feel like we have a team that’s going to beat anybody in baseball.”Is there a new challenge this year to avoid the wild card play-in game?“You know it was a crazy thing. The one-game playoff thing, I think [there’s] a flaw in the style. Anyone can beat anybody in one game. I think that was everyone’s argument coming into it. We played our worst game of the year on the most important game of the season and it was tough. We felt like we were much better than the team we put out there that night and it’s just tough because we felt like we had a team that could do something in the playoffs, and a series — whether it’d be a three-game or a five-game or a seven-game series — we felt like we had a team that could win, but we gotta put it behind us and we feel like we have a much better team right now than we had last year.”ost a
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