FanHouse JaretWright

From the Windup is FanHouse's daily, extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.

It took me roughly six hours to formulate any sort of attack plan for this column. And that would be embarrassing if the column wasn't about the very thing that was really screwing my head around backwards: John Smoltz's comments to Jay Busbee.

"I say this for the first time, without reservation, if I'm going to bust my butt and if I feel like I'm good enough and it doesn't work out here, I will be pitching somewhere else ... My dream scenario would be to pitch in the playoffs again, and that's coming from a guy who's been in 13 of them. (Smoltz missed the 2000 playoffs with Tommy John surgery.) To me, that's what I'm about. So if the door gets closed here, it'll have to be explored somewhere else."

This is a terrifying statement for any fan of baseball and particularly for any lifelong Braves fan who places Smoltz as his favorite ballplayer ever. In fairness to Smoltz, of course, he didn't know the interview was going in Atlanta Magazine (not sure how that actually matters) and he did point out that the ideal situation was to finish his career with the Braves.

Some highlights from yesterday's games ...

History can wait. The Nationals are a team some people think might be historically bad, but for at least one day, they defied odds by overcoming a 5-0 deficit to earn their first win of the season. Oh, but Nats fans? Before you get too excited, keep in mind that Jorge Julio was pitching.

A fight between a cat and a bird shouldn't be this close. You'd think an eight-run inning in the third would make things easy the rest of the way, right? Guess again: the Tigers almost saw their first win go up in flames after the Blue Jays clawled their way back in the game. Nevertheless, Todd "Rollercoaster" Jones closed out the 10-9 win, but only after allowing two men on -- he just likes to make things interesting, you know?

World Series hangover? With another win on Wednesday, the Mets swept the series by a combined score of 20-2. Carlos Beltran smacked two out of the park, but the second was just showing off -- New York only needed one as the Cardinals were shut out. As for St. Louis' "Braden Looper, starter" experiment, the results are inconclusive: 6 IP, 8 H, 3 ER.

Bring out the brooms. The Twins also swept their opening series, running the Orioles out of town (or would that be walking? O's starter Jaret Wright did have five of them) with a 7-2 win. And Joe Mauer? Still good. He's hit .455 in his first three.