Smoltz's Struggles Leave Sox in Bind

NEW YORK -- Legendary reputation intersected with rapid decline Thursday night in the Bronx, and the aftermath of the collision wasn't pretty. There stood John Smoltz, one of the brightest stars in baseball across the last two decades, watching what's left of his amazing career crumble to pieces on the Yankee Stadium mound.

One after another Yankee batters sliced apart Smoltz, until it was clear he had nothing more to give. Was this it? Would this be the final wheeze in his last hurrah, Smoltz's epitaph noting he'd suffered death by lefties? He's pitched so brilliantly for so many years, packing heart and soul into every outing, and yet the Red Sox have to know.

They can't win a pennant with Smoltz in the rotation.

The margin for error in the American League East is as thin as a butterfly's wing, and if Boston doesn't do something with Smoltz -- Release him? Move him to the bullpen, where his fragile shoulder will be even more exposed? – winter could come awfully soon in New England. In the first game of what figures to be a pivotal four-game showdown, the Yankees smacked around the Red Sox, 13-6, but the crooked scoreboard numbers are hardly what stood out.

No, the sight that stung the most was the image of Smoltz plodding off the Stadium grass, the fourth inning still young. He tucked his chin into his chest like a man forced to walk a gangplank. He had hung pitches, missed pitches, turned to watch Melky Cabrera deposit a pitch deep into the second deck beyond the right field fence and was mercifully lifted with one out and the bases loaded. Smoltz was brutal against lefties, terrible against righties. If he has anything left -- and even he isn't sure of the answer -- he picked an awful time and place to unravel.

"No one should have to watch that," Smoltz said later. "I'm pretty humbled right now with the way things have gone. I don't like to use the word embarrassed, but I have a lot of pride and I certainly don't like letting somebody down. I can't throw BP and give up the runs I've been giving."

He verbally flagellated himself for as long as the questions came, vowing to keep fighting, to keep working hard and prove the Red Sox weren't idiots to give a 42-year-old survivor of labrum surgery more than $5 million to pitch one final year. But after eight starts, his ERA is a bulging 8.33, and getting tagged for nine hits and eight runs in just 3 1/3 innings by the evil Yankees is hardly the way to earn the Nation's love.

"I can't dig a hole and hide," Smoltz said. "I didn't make the pitches when I had to. I'll get up tomorrow and try to figure out ways to fix this or do whatever I have to."

But he knows what all the great ones come to realize when they hang on too long. It kills Smoltz to admit it, clearly, but you could sense the thoughts running through his head as he sat in the dugout, watching the Yankees build a 3 1/2–game lead over the Red Sox. The soundtrack in Smoltz's head kept replaying the 1-2 high fastball that Cabrera belted deep into the blue seats to erase a skinny Boston lead and put the Yankees up, 5-3. The soundtrack reminded Smoltz the Red Sox haven't the luxury of allowing him time to find his groove, not with Tim Wakefield and Daisuke Matsuzaka out with injuries and Tampa Bay knocking on Boston's door. The soundtrack ridiculed Smoltz' flat fastball, his dripping slider.

"Time may not be on my side if this continues," Smoltz admitted.

Was Smoltz's track record -- he is, after all, the only pitcher in major league history with at least 200 career wins and 150 saves -- enough to justify one more start? Manager Terry Francona wasn't ready to commit to anything beyond a good night's sleep.

"We have a lot of things to talk about," he said with a sigh. "I know why you would ask that and understand where it's coming from, but I don't think that five minutes after a game is the right time to come to a conclusion on that."

It had been a rough, ugly evening for both sides – the Red Sox stranded 15 runners, the Yankee pitchers combined for 12 walks, Jorge Posada atoned for dumb base-running by coming a triple short of hitting for the cycle (Boston fielders would have had to all fall down for that to happen, but still) and David Ortiz wasn't mocked any more than usual by the largest crowd in the new Stadium's brief history.

This being the greatest rivalry in the world and all that, Ortiz was greeted with a long Bronx cheer, but Yankee fans were mostly smart enough to keep taunts about Big Papi's alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs to a minimum. It's tough to dislike a guy who devotes large chunks of the afternoon to signing autographs along the Stadium rails for Red Sox and Yankee fans alike, and New Yorkers certainly didn't mind sweetly serenading Ortiz after he finished the night 0-for-5.

Ortiz and members of the players association plan to hold a news conference before Saturday's game at the Stadium, to address the details behind the revelations that his name is on the list of 104 major leaguers who tested positive for banned performance-enhancing drugs in 2003. Odd to say, but unless Ortiz admits to mainlining horse tranquilizers, whatever information he provides will almost seem like an afterthought in this steroid-weary atmosphere.

"I'm going to let you guys know what I got, period," said Ortiz, now hitless in his last 16 at-bats.

Even odder to say, considering New York had lost eight straight games to Boston this season, but this series carries more weight for the Red Sox. Smoltz's future is only one reason Francona looked more weary than usual. Jason Bay's injured right hamstring forced Francona to go with a quirky lineup that included Kevin Youkilis in left field, his first start in the outfield since 2006.

Boston needed "good bats in the lineup," Francona said. "And he's willing to do it, which amazes me. So I just told him, 'You know what, we'll do it. And I said, 'If you make an error out there, send the [media] to me, because it's my fault.'"

Youkilis was lucky he didn't strain his neck, considering how many balls the Red Sox outfielders had to turn and watch sail over the fence. The Yankees exploded for eight runs in the fourth inning, pacing an 18-hit deluge. Johnny Damon, Cabrera, Posada and Mark Teixeira all went deep.

All that flash with the wood, all those awful pitches by Smoltz, and still Yankee starter Joba Chamberlain could not get comfortable. Pitching on seven days rest, Chamberlain won despite giving up four runs on six hits and a career-high seven walks. For five tedious innings, he labored in and out of trouble, falling behind batters and wasting his precious pitch count.

The Yankees are so determined to baby Chamberlain, to shut him down when he hits 160 innings (or so, the exact numbers fluctuating daily), but he did manage to improve to 8-2 on the season and 4-0 since the All-Star beak. He burned through 108 pitches and fell apart in the fifth inning, after waiting out Smoltz's 34-minute breakdown by riding an exercise bike to stay warm. Chamberlain walked the first two batters, got Ortiz to fly out, walked J.D. Drew to load the bases, gave up a RBI single to Mike Lowell and then completed his odyssey with a typical fist-pumping flourish by striking out Casey Kotchman and Nick Green.

But it was the classy, Hall of Fame-bound pitcher in the other dugout who caused the most head-scratching. Smoltz has made it through six innings in just one of his eight starts this season. The end to his glorious 21-year career feels closer than ever.

"I'm man enough to stand up here and say I'm not doing it, and no one feels worse about it than I do," Smoltz said. "This is an organization that expects high standards and I expect them of myself. I'll be the first to say that these last few games -- they all haven't been like this.

"This is probably the worst result game that I've pitched," he said, and he inhaled softly. "You don't want to do it here."