Payback's a bitch: Braves annihilate Sox

Atlanta 14, Sox 0
WP: Smoltz (6-2)
LP: Hansack (0-1)
HRs: ATL- C. Jones (12), Diaz (3), K. Johnson (6)

Smoltz looked like the John Smoltz of old, and having recently turned 40, he is old

RECAP:

You know what they say, what's good for the goose...

Atlanta rode the strong pitching of ace John Smoltz and 12 extra base hits to a "how do you like it?" demolition of the Sox just hours after Boston had done the same to the Braves this afternoon. Leadoff hitter Kelly Johnson led the way as he tallied five RBI and fell a single shy of a cycle, and five Braves had multi-hit games.

HERO: Smoltz 7IP, 3H, 0R, BB, 7Ks
It's amazing how a legendary big-game pitcher can save a sinking ship at just the right moment.

After his team got castrated in the opener to drop its fifth game in the last six, Smoltzie came in to stop the bleeding and earned career victory #199.

GOAT(s): Boston Pitchers 9IP, 18H, 14R, 4BB, 2WP, 3HRs, 180 pitches
Wow, did someone put a mirror up to the opener of this series or what? The five Boston hurlers put up nearly identical numbers to the putrid performances that six Braves pitchers put forth in the opener.

And while Hansack didn't pitch that poorly (3ER, 6H in 4IP), relievers Joel Pineiro, Javier Lopez and Branden Donnelly were just plain awful.

Can we get a pitcher's duel please?!

SUMMARY:
What can you say after a game like this except, "holy shit, so this is what the other teams feel like when Boston kicks the snot out of them?!"

Boston suffered its worst loss of the season in a game that was an evil doppelganger to the first game of this day/night doubleheader.

In the opener a veteran pitcher (okay, so he's a vet of the Japanese League, he was still a pro for eight years!) beat a shaky newbie while his offense clubbed 18 hits, including nine for extra bases, and stomped the shit out of the opponent's bullpen in a devastating 10-run victory.

So what happened in the nightcap? A veteran pitcher beat a shaky newbie while his offense clubbed 18 hits, including 12 for extra bases, and stomped the shit out of the opponent's bullpen in a humiliating 14-run victory.

Touche.

Let's just put both of these games behind us and move on, shall we? Because if we took these two games as a barometer of both teams, this is what we would come up with:

1. Both teams have great offenses
2. Both teams have good pitching
3. Both teams can shellack young mound men and/or unreliable relievers
4. Joel Pineiro sucks

Okay so maybe the last one was out of place, but it's too obvious to ignore now so I had to throw it in there.

The Braves onslaught of runs started innocently enough as they scratched out single scores in the first, on Chipper Jones' 12th home run, and second innings off Hansack, who was making his first start of the season in place of Josh Beckett.

Former FSU standout Matt Diaz proved to be a thorn in Hansack's sack when he doubled in a run in the second and then hit a one-out homer in the fourth to push the score to 3-0. When Hansack finished the inning he was finished for the night after throwing 77 pitches and allowing
three earned runs. Then came Pineiro.

Quicker than you can say "one-way ticket to Pawtucket, please", the man who is quickly becoming the heir apparent to Tavarez' 'Gascan' nickname gave up four runs on four hits, a walk and a wild pitch in two innings of work.

Thanks for coming, Jo-el!

By the time he left the score was 8-0 Atlanta after six innings, and it was all over but the piling on. And pile on the Braves did, torching the previously unscored-upon (I had to mention that yesterday, didn't I?) Javier Lopez for three runs in an ugly 7th inning that began with an error by Lugo and featured two walks, a double and a triple, and by the time the dust cleared the score was 11-0 Boston and it was officially "let's look ahead to tomorrow" time in the dugout.

Meanwhile Smoltz, the lone holdover from Atlanta's glory days rotation of the '90s, put aside a nagging dislocated finger injury and his recent 40th birthday and completely stifled a steaming hot Boston lineup, holding the hitters to a mere three hits after they had hit the ball all over-and out-of-the yard in the opener. Talk about the power of good pitching.

By the time the Braves tacked on another three-spot in an ugly 9th inning that was played in driving rain & wind and chock full of shoddy fielding (error by Cora) and horrible pitching (three runs on four hits and a wild pitch by Donnelly), most of the battle-weary fans had long left the building, tired of sitting in the rain and watching hundreds of men run around the bases all day with no one apparently able to stop them.

Oh, and remember when I cursed the Sox by saying they might have used up all their runs in the first game.

Ditto, Atlanta.

NOTES:

-The Sox are going to need one of their fabled sabermetricians to calculate all the stats when this series is over; in two games (in one day) the teams combined for 58 hits, 30 runs and 24 extra base hits and the pitchers have thrown a total of 620 pitches. I'm tired now.

-After tallying three hits in the opener, arch nemesis Edgar Rentanerror went 0-4, the only player in Atlanta's lineup not to register a hit

-Coming into the game Johnson had 16 extra base hits on the season, then hit three in this game
-Boston's three hits were a double by Coco and singles from Lowell & Pedroia. Lowell's hit extended his hitting streak to 11 games, and Pedroia, interestingly, hit in the 5th spot in the lineup. Hmmm...

-Tek, Youk & Drew had the nightcap off; Belli, Youk and Wily Mo went 0-9 in their steads
-Pineiro's ERA skyrocketed from 4.40 to 6.06

-J.C. Romero was the only Boston pitcher who didn't surrender a run, pitching a scoreless 8th

-Kason Gabbard will get the start tomorrow, as had been speculated, and in a cruel twist of MLB fate, Hansack will take the bus back down to Pawtucket when Gabbard arrives

QUOTES:

-"Every team's the same. You get that kind of starting pitching, you're going to win."-Braves manager Crusty Bobby Cox

-"That was probably the weirdest doubleheader I've ever been a part of."-Johnson, who is only in his second year, but still, he's right

-"I'd hate to see him with all of his fingers." -Tito on Smoltz

RECORD: 29-13

AL EAST: Up 9.5 on BAL

UP NEXT: Sun vs. ATL 2P