January 14, 2009

Excited About Smoltz

Update: Lengthy radio interview with 790 The Zone (Atlanta) this morning.

***

It was in early December when John Farrell, Ben Cherington and Mike Reinold went to Atlanta to watch John Smoltz throw a 50-pitch side session. It was Smoltz's second time throwing since his surgery, but he was confident.

Nick Scherer, the Director of Operations for the Georgia Tech baseball team, was catching:
I'm standing back there ready to get this warm-up pitch. Then, all of a sudden, here comes this 92 mph fastball, low and away, that doesn't touch my glove. I immediately thought, "I better get down now. He's ready to go."

He starts mixing in his slider, and I'm like, "All right, it has a nice late break and it's hard." But then he was like, "Now I'm going to throw a curveball," and he breaks off this 12-to-6 that totally fools me. And then he starts saying we're going to throw split-fingers, changeups, and a little of this and that. I'm like, "Good Lord Smoltzy, you're ready to pitch, aren't you?!"
Reading this melted about a foot of snow from my winter mind. The potential upside of this signing is ridiculously exciting.

***

The Alex Cora Era has ended. Einstein has signed with the Mets.

8 comments:

bdubsmitty said...

Perhaps the Sox could re-sign Schilling to a 1 year deal and have a postseason rotation of Beckett, Schilling, & Smoltz.

To me, that spells:

c-h-a-m-p-i-o-n-s-h-i-p

allan said...

Fat Billy Mention Of The Day:

TPM reader "D(K)":

"Doesn't it seem a little odd that when you have a ball player (Roger Clemens) who lies to Congress about steroid use in baseball, the U.S. Attorney for DC convenes a grand jury to consider a perjury indictment, but when an official of the Justice Department (Bradley Schlozman) lies to Congress about trying to politicize the civil service within DOJ, the U.S. Attorney fo DC passes on further investigation or prosecution? Which really seems like the more significant problem for the country?"

(thanks, nick)

Patrick said...

Lord Smoltzy

I like that.

Benjamin said...

It'd be an exaggeration to say I'd rather the Sox sign Rickey Henderson than re-sign Schilling, but Schilling's productive contributions to this club (for which we are very thankful) are in the past.

laura k said...

Perhaps the Sox could re-sign Schilling to a 1 year deal and have a postseason rotation of Beckett, Schilling, & Smoltz.

To me, that spells:

c-h-a-m-p-i-o-n-s-h-i-p


But only if Schilling spends the whole season on the DL and never pitches.

Patrick, try again on that link?

Patrick said...

It was trying to italicize Lord Smoltzy and failed wonderfully.

andy said...

If that is ahead of schedule then teams lie about the real status of the players.

Anonymous said...

ANDY: bill belichick and his injury reports sound familiar?