Some Braves' golf plans for Monday's off-day in Washington might have been scuttled because of rain, and that isn't the only place where the forecast looks dark:
Right-hander John Smoltz said on his morning radio show on Atlanta's 790 The Zone that he plans to skip his next scheduled start to give his shoulder more time to recover. But the collective mental "Yikes!" came before that -- in the bottom of the second at Shea Stadium Sunday when the gun clocked Smoltz's fastball at 88.
After 48 pitches, Smoltz had thrown 23 balls, 25 strikes. Not the usual ratio. Soon after that, he was throwing a lot of off-speed stuff.
The day after he recorded his 3,000th career strikeout, Smoltz was pleased that his shoulder (this description includes a strained right trapezius muscle) had recovered more than he had expected; this after 105 pitches over seven innings. It seems to have caught up with him Sunday.
So now Smoltz will have to put in practice the patience and the plan he has said all along he would follow: taking more time between starts when he has to, to the point of skipping one.
From spring training on, Smoltz has talked openly about this, probably as much to burn it into his own psyche as to inform everyone else. He was trying to prevent anyone saying, "See? He can't do it anymore." That's just the kind of thing that would make him go to the mound when he shouldn't.
