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Sunday, August 27, 2006
Smoltz waiting for word on future
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Two years after he was generally mocked and lampooned for claiming his arm would be better off throwing 100 pitches every five days than a dozen every couple, John Smoltz is the only starting pitcher the Braves can depend on. That his arm hasn’t fallen off, therefore, is a given. And, so, I must admit here: I was wrong.
“I appreciate that — you’re the first one to admit that,” Smoltz said Sunday, certainly aware that I could lose my license as a columnist and character assassin with this declaration.
There’s a month left in the season. Only AP mathematics keeps the Braves in the playoff race. Only Smoltz is keeping them north of the Nationals. And Richmond.
All of which begs the question: Isn’t it about time the Braves make some sort of declaration?
Smoltz’s contract is up after this season. The Braves hold an $8 million option for next season — a relative swap meet price for a starting pitcher who leads the National League in innings (190) and ranks second in strikeouts (176). The thought of not exercising the option — which needs to be done by shortly after the World Series — seems implausible.
But general manager John Schuerholz has yet to make even a verbal affirmation on Smoltz’s future — and the pitcher isn’t happy about it. Smoltz also did little to hide what most already knew — that he and Schuerholz hardly are chummy.
“I wonder why it hasn’t [been picked up yet],” Smoltz said of his option. “I know what the pat answer is: That’s how we do business around here. But even if it’s going to ruffle some feathers me saying something — you know what? I just don’t understand it. You’ve never heard me be bitter about something, other than bitter that we lose another chance at a World Series. But when people ask me questions, I have to be honest and say I can’t talk about next year because I don’t know what next year is going to [bring].
“I’ve come back from so much, I’ve worked so hard that I’m not going to concern myself with being the prisoner of an environment. I’ve been here 19 years, so the overwhelming feeling is, ‘They’ll never get rid of you.’ But after every single year, I’ve had to work 10 times harder just to work this out.
“All I know is, after these last two years and with my desire to work out, I’ve got two or three more years, easy. I used to always be of the mind-set that, ‘If it’s not here, it won’t be anywhere else.’ But that’s not the case any more. I’ll pitch somewhere else.”
The Braves need significant fixes if they’re going to become a playoff team again. But when Smoltz was asked what areas he would try to improve if he was general manager, he smiled.
“Every time I answer that, homeboy upstairs criticizes me,” he said, a reference to Schuerholz.
One illustration: When the Braves followed a 6-21 June by winning nine of their first 12 in July, Smoltz said the team needed to make a move to keep the run going and Schuerholz didn’t take it well.
Smoltz: “All I said was, now that we’re playing good, I hope management will do whatever it takes. And he went off. Why? What did I say that a normal competitive player wouldn’t say?”
Schuerholz responded to Smoltz’s comments in July this way: “There’s a lot of people volunteering to be assistant general managers. He’s just the latest.”
This much is certain: Smoltz has had a better year than Schuerholz.
Schuerholz put together a team with, among other flaws, a bad bullpen. Smoltz is 12-6 — and only 12-6 because the bullpen has blown six save opportunities. It’s a replay of last season, when Smoltz was 14-7, and eight other wins were lost to blown saves.
Smoltz lost his first three starts last season in his return from the closer’s role. Since then, however, he is 26-10 with a 3.10 ERA.
This season, he is 8-1 at Turner Field, where the Braves are six games under .500 (28-34).
Logic screams he’ll be back. But Smoltz said, “I don’t know what the future holds for me.”
And this from someone who two years ago foresaw something few others did.
Permalink | Comments (304) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Jeff Schultz
Falcons excel in half that counts
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Nashville — There ought to be a law: In any exhibition involving Michael Vick and Vince Young, the two quarterbacks must be required to play in the same half. That Vick was done long before Young got his chance in Saturday night’s exhibition means that Jeff Fisher, the coach who chose to let the legendary Billy Volek work the entire first half, should be fired.
Soon enough, Fisher might well be. His Tennessee Titans might not win five games. The Atlanta Falcons, who won 20-6, should win twice that many.
Yes, the Falcons. Yes, the same guys who stunk up Lambeau Field last weekend to the extent that their coach was left frothing. (Then again, it doesn’t take much to make Jim Mora throw a fit.) They answered that listless performance with a rather rousing one, making a bad team look really bad and making T.J. Duckett seem a distant memory.
Two runs by Jerious Norwood were the talking points of the Falcons’ most comprehensive half of the preseason, and given that the first half of the third exhibition tends to be the one most teams take most seriously, the rookie picked his spot nicely. He scored the game’s first touchdown on a 62-yard cutback, a play on which Duckett — dispatched to D.C. during the week — might have gotten one-tenth as much yardage.
About third exhibitions in general, Mora said: “It’s the first one where you do any game-planning, where you simulate your [regular-season] work week. It’s the one where you play your starters the most.” And then, about this game specifically: “You’d like to put on a good show, and, for the most part, I think we did.”
Back to Norwood. He galvanized the Falcons’ second touchdown drive with a breathtaking — the adjective is apt — fourth-down burst to the Tennessee 1. Hit in the backfield, he put his hand on the turf and kept his knees above it and flung himself forward for 5 of the most heartening yards this franchise has ever known. Then Vick stood in against a big rush and found Michael Jenkins for the touchdown that made it 17-3 and ended Vick’s participation.
Rule of thumb: The only score that matters in the exhibition season is the score when the first starting quarterback gets pulled, and a two-touchdown spread on the road is good enough to satisfy most every criterion. The defense, pliant against New England and Green Bay, held Tennessee to 83 yards on its first six possessions. Alge Crumpler saw his first (and probably last) action of the preseason and looked like his old self. Vick didn’t shoot out the lights with his passing but didn’t get hurt, either, and in the grand scheme that’s all that matters.
The point being: You can’t win the Super Bowl in August, but you can lose it. The Falcons have made it through three exhibitions without a significant injury, save Brian Finneran, whose knee injury in two-a-days seems to have been offset by the addition of Ashley Lelie, who arrived in the Duckett deal but didn’t play here. If you liked this team going into camp, you have to like it now.
I did, and I do. I have by now resigned myself to believing that no combination of Vick and offensive coordinator Greg Knapp will ever produce a seamless and sustained offense, but I continue to believe Vick will make enough plays to keep his team moving. And the defense, whose subs were overrun by Green Bay, will be fine. Those subs won’t be playing all at once come September. And John Abraham, who is absolutely big-time, will be playing every snap.
If anything, the Falcons have actually gotten better this past fortnight. They’ve identified deficiencies and moved to rectify them. (Hello, Lelie. Hello, Grady Jackson.) If you liked this team in July, you should like it even more now.
I did, and I do. But you know someone I don’t like? Fisher. Holding Young until the second half when everybody in the world wants a little head-to-head between the two most dynamic quarterbacks of their generation? Give me a break.
Permalink | Comments (51) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
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