Millwood, Braves Scalp Expos

Kevin Millwood has as many wins as any pitcher in the major leagues. Still, he hasn't lost sight of his role in the Atlanta Braves rotation.

Yes, he's still the fifth starter.

"When I look at the other guys, I see (three) Cy Young winners and Denny Neagle, who won 20 games last year," Millwood said after pitching a four-hitter Sunday for a 5-1 victory over the Montreal Expos. "I've not done half the things those other guys have done."

Millwood (9-2) is catching up fast. He joined teammates Tom Glavine Greg Maddux as the NL's top winners, and no one in the AL has more than nine wins, either.

With his second complete game, Millwood also helped Bobby Cox equal Frank Selee as the winningest manager in Braves history.

"I'm still the fifth starter, but that doesn't mean I can't be a winner," Millwood said.

Cox has done plenty of winning during his two stints as the Braves manager, improving to 1,004-819. His overall mark is 1,359-1,111, making him the 22nd winningest manager in baseball history.

Selee won 1,004 games from 1890-1901 when the Braves were in their original city, Boston. His teams won five NL pennants, one more than Cox has achieved during the Braves' run of success in the 1990s.

"I don't know much about that guy," Cox said of Selee. "But it's great to be leading something. I'll take it."

Millwood overcame a third-inning homer by his Montreal counterpart, Carlos Perez, retiring the next 12 hitters. Millwood had seven strikeouts and just one walk -- to the first hitter of the game -- as 77 of his 113 pitches were strikes.

"I was a little tired in the eighth inning, but I battled through it," he said. "I told Bobby I wanted to be out there in the ninth inning, and he showed confidence in me."

Millwood has gotten ample support from his teammates, who have averaged 6.2 runs in his 13 starts.

"If I didn't have the defense and hitting I've been getting, I wouldn't be 9-2. I wouldn't be close to 9-2," he said. "The whole team is 9-2 with me."

Perez (6-5) hit his third career homer, but Atlanta bounced back immediately in the bottom of the third, scoring three runs with two outs.

Gerald Williams, making a rare start, had an RBI single and Tony Graffanino followed with a run-scoring triple on the first of three plays in which Montreal outfielders made futile attempts for fly balls.

Rondell White plopped to the ground short of Graffanino's liner, which skipped pst the center fielder while Williams scored all the way from first. Graffanino came home when Chipper Jones blooped a single to right, the ball eluding the dive of Vladimir Guerrero.

In the fourth, the braves scored two more runs on Ozzie Guillen's triple, a low liner that skidded under Guerrero's glove while Javy Lopez and Danny Bautista came around to score.

"I don't like the way they hit stupid bloopers with two outs," said Perez, who went seven innings, surrendering nine hits and all five runs. "I didn't see anyone hit the ball hard ... (just) those stupid bloopers with two outs."

Perez and Brad Fullmer, who had two of the four hits, were about the only Montreal players to have any success against Millwood on a sweltering day with temperatures hovering at 90 degrees.

"He is a good pitcher," Perez said. "I give him credit, going nine innings in that kind of weather. He has very good stuff."

Notes