Weekend Buzz: With clear mind, Smoltz ready to return to form
Knobler: Look Ahead
The Weekend Buzz while you were contemplating the Mets losing Sunday on the first game-ending triple play since 1927. ...
1. Smoldering Smoltz: John Smoltz doesn't get rattled. But I've never seen him as he was a few days ago, sitting on a dugout bench in San Diego on Thursday, his first day wearing a St. Louis uniform.
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| John Smoltz hopes to put his stint in Boston (8.33 ERA) behind him with St. Louis. (AP) |
"Inside people in baseball know that sometimes results can be skewed, and you're really not as far away as it looks, and you can fix them," Smoltz said.
Then on Sunday, at 42 years old and still fighting to return from major shoulder surgery, he went out and did just that.
Now granted, forget the '27 Yankees, the current Padres might not hit enough to win at the Little League World Series currently being staged in Williamsport, Pa. But for Smoltz to dominate the way he did over five innings in Sunday's 5-2 win, to fan seven consecutive San Diego hitters during one devastating stretch from the first through the third innings ... yeah, Smoltz's pleas for patience are a heck of a lot more convincing today than they even were on Thursday as he was uttering them.
The Boston days (2-5, 8.33 ERA in eight starts) will end up being the worst chapter of his otherwise unblemished career. He was humiliated.
And to anybody who has ever battled sleepless nights and nausea while starting a tense new job, Smoltz is Exhibit A in how even the most accomplished of talents in any field are not immune to anxiety attacks when embarking upon a new endeavor.
An emotional roller-coaster in Boston?
"Huge," admitted Smoltz, who is blazing a new trail this year following 20 seasons in Atlanta. "Bigger than I ever imagined."
So much so, he said, that he called his first start with Boston this season, a 9-3 loss on June 25 at Washington, an "out-of-body experience." Among other things, he said, when he was attempting to work out of a bases-loaded jam, he actually forgot where to put his feet when working out of the stretch.
"I lost how a pitcher should feel, and I couldn't believe it," Smoltz said. "It was amazing."
As much as Red Sox manager Terry Francona and pitching coach John Farrell told him to slow down and take some pressure off of himself -- Smoltz was with the Sox all spring training on a program designed for him to not start a big league game before late June or early July -- he said he couldn't help himself. He did so anyway.
"I allowed the game to go faster," he said. "I reacted to story lines. I tried to fix things faster than [I should have] ... I tried too hard."
The Cardinals promised Smoltz two starts -- Sunday's and another this weekend at home against the Nationals -- and then the two sides agreed they would go from there. The Cardinals need a right-handed set-up man for Ryan Franklin and, when they signed Smoltz, the starts seemed designed simply to let the pitcher air it out, build his arm back up and then probably move into a relief role.
But developments over the weekend -- Smoltz's dominant five innings Sunday on the heels of Kyle Lohse suffering a groin strain on Friday night -- probably will keep Smoltz in the rotation for the immediate future.
In handcuffing the Padres on Sunday, his fastball reached 93 mph, his slider was in the mid-80s and his curve was in the 70s. He threw 75 pitches in five innings, allowed only three hits and obtained nine of his 15 outs on strikeouts. He didn't walk a batter.
Yes, some NL lineups are to the Yankees what a declawed kitten is to a starving mountain lion. Still, the way Smoltz pitched on Sunday for a team that right now appears to be the best in the NL, it's hard not to take him at his word: Inside people in baseball know that sometimes results can be skewed, and you're really not as far away as it looks, and you can fix them.
"It's not a mulligan," Smoltz said of his new St. Louis chapter. "But it's an opportunity to go and with some different eyes [primarily, those of legendary Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan] get back to what I think I can do.
"If I believed what was said, if I believed the stats, I'd be at home watching TV and playing Fantasy Football."
Sunday afternoon, you had to think, the Padres were wishing that was exactly what he would have been doing. The question now becomes, how many other opponents will he make believe the same thing?
2. Eric Bruntlett's unassisted triple play: Phillies' second baseman was humble after the game, saying, "I was part of the reason there were runners on base." Phillies' closer Brad Lidge said, "I kind of had that feeling that something good was going to happen before [Jeff] Francoeur hit it. I really don't know why, but I had that feeling." Bet they were saying the same thing about Detroit first baseman Johnny Neun back in 1927, too -- the only other time a major league game ended with an unassisted triple play.
3. Ricketts family signs agreement to purchase 95 percent of the Cubs: Unfortunately, Alfonso Soriano, Milton Bradley and Carlos Zambrano aren't in the 5 percent part that the Tribune Co. will retain.
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| Can Jason Giambi improve on his putrid Oakland numbers in Colorado? (AP) |
5. Yankees-Red Sox: Don't worry, both clubs figure to have new defensive coordinators by October.
6. Rockies close to signing Jason Giambi: Company line is that the NL wild-card leaders want a veteran left-handed bat off the bench. The fact that Giambi, who was hitting just .193 with 11 homers and 40 RBI in 83 games with Oakland, can provide the Rockies with restaurant recommendations and greasy-spoon tips near all known NL wild-card locales is just a happy bonus.
7. Mets owner Fred Wilpon says GM Omar Minaya will return in 2010: Yeah, well, if the GM was named Bernie Madoff, Wilpon would invest with him, too.
8. The welcome mat at Billy Wagner's Boston locker will read "Go Away": Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon demanded to know, on Boston's WEEI radio website, what Wagner has done, whether he has pitched this year, whether or not he's ready to pitch and whether or not he had anything to do with issuing those prescription narcotics to Michael Jackson. OK, that last part was just a joke, but what Papelbon really said after all of that was even worse: He compared Wagner to, gasp, Eric Gagne's waste-of-time stopover in Boston during the 2007 season.
9. Joe Torre goes for the jugular: The Dodgers manager called upon closer Jonathan Broxton to work the eighth inning of Saturday's tight win over the Cubs ... then summoned new set-up man and former Orioles closer George Sherrill to work the ninth. Torre admitted he's never done that before while noting the growing importance of each game (plus, matchups favored a right-hander in the eighth). In fairness to Broxton, he recently admitted that he's worn down. Plus, he's so big, it would take week to find his jugular. Let's see where this goes from here.
10. Monday is the 20th anniversary of Pete Rose's lifetime ban: Who?
11. Aaron Harang out for the year: Erstwhile Cincinnati ace undergoes emergency appendectomy late Saturday night. Most important line in Reds' box score these days: Nine players currently on the disabled list, five from the opening day roster, seven different surgeries. "This is beyond ridiculous here," says manager Dusty Baker, who has used 102 different lineups in 123 games. Coincidentally, that's what Reds fans have been saying for years.
