How one pitch might have sent John Smoltz on a path to the Hall of Fame

It’s probably simplistic to say a single pitch could chart a pitcher’s path to the Hall of Fame, but that might be just what happened for John Smoltz.

On a scorching July night 24 years ago, one pitch, to one batter, not only changed the direction of an inning, but likely the direction of Smoltz’s season and, by extension, his career.

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Yes, one pitch.

As the Braves limped into the 1991 All-Star break a game under .500, 9 1/2 games out of first place and with their surprisingly competitive season having lost momentum, Smoltz had wrapped up a nightmarish personal start to his third full season in the majors.

The 24-year-old former All-Star and touted “Young Gun” had a dismal 2-11 record and an ERA of 5.16. Almost nothing had gone right. Low run support. Control problems. Big innings. Bad luck. Smoltz later said he tried to use a contract dispute as emotional fuel to pitch better. Not only did it not work, he said, it backfired big time.

“I know my teammates, my manager, my coaches are sick of seeing this,” Smoltz told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution after his last outing of the first half, a 7-6 loss to the Dodgers in which he gave up five earned runs and walked four batters in 1 2/3 innings. “It’s not going to happen anymore.”

The Braves’ front office and manager Bobby Cox had a tough decision: send the struggling Smoltz to the bullpen, demote him to the minors or stick with him as a starter.

They stuck with him.

It was at this time that Braves GM John Schuerholz famously suggested Smoltz visit sports psychologist Jack Llewellyn in hopes of solving the right-hander’s pitching ills, which it was assumed were at least part mental.

“I knew that I wasn’t seeing the real John Smoltz,” Schuerholz later told the AJC. 

Scheurholz made the suggestion on July 11. The next day, Smoltz met with Llewellyn for five hours before making his first start of the second half, according to an AJC report. The crux of the advice: Prepare yourself mentally and don’t go negative.

But just three pitches into his game that night against the Cardinals, Smoltz found himself in a frustratingly familiar position.

Milt Thompson led off with a solid single to left. Ozzie Smith followed with a bunt hit down the third-base line. Three pitches, two on, nobody out. Here we go again.

Up stepped Smoltz’s former teammate, Gerald Perry. First pitch, a ball just inside. Second pitch, a foul back. Third pitch, a ball low and inside. Fourth pitch, a ball high and away — and a 3-1 count. 

In the first half, the outcome would’ve been predictable — a walk, or perhaps a bloop single, would’ve led to a big inning for the Cardinals and another start spiraling out of control for Smoltz.

Now, just a few minutes into his first start of the second half, the 3-1 pitch to Perry became the most important pitch of the inning, maybe of the game, maybe of Smoltz’s season. 

Smoltz released a fastball right down the middle. Perry swung hard and hit it — but  just missed it. A harmless flyout to center. The runners held. The next batter, Todd Zeile, flew out to deep left on the first pitch. The runners held. Smoltz then struck out Felix Jose looking. Threat over.

He escaped unscathed. This was new. Though only a half-inning, it felt like a turning point.

“When a guy turns a season around, you can always point back to something. And you may not know that it’s happening then,” Braves TV commentator and eventual Hall-of-Famer Don Sutton said as Smoltz pitched in the top of the second. “The last three batters in the first inning for John Smoltz … that’s three of the best-pitched sequences and the best job I’ve seen him do with runners on base this year.”

It was, as Sutton said later, “a different John Smoltz.”

Though Smoltz would run into trouble later in the game, even giving a 2-0 lead right back in the top of the fourth after the Braves went ahead in the bottom of the third, he limited the damage. He kept things manageable. He never trailed. That certainly was different for Smoltz to that point in 1991.

The first-inning escape job had set a new tone. The pivotal moment, TBS announcer Skip Caray surmised, was Perry’s at-bat.

“You never know how things are going to work out,” Caray said in the sixth inning, “but if John Smoltz gets his season turned around, remember the 3-1 pitch to Gerald Perry in the first inning with two on and nobody out.”

Twenty-four years later, we know how things worked out. Smoltz did turn his season around, which turned his career around.

To put it another way, with that 3-1 fastball to Perry, it can be argued, John Smoltz became John Smoltz .

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Smoltz went 6 1/3 innings that night, scattering seven hits and giving up two runs, for his third win of 1991.

As Smoltz left to a standing ovation in the seventh, Caray called it “a most encouraging outing for the young right-hander.”

Things only got more encouraging from there.

After that win against the Cardinals on July 12, Smoltz went 11-2 over his final 17 starts, posting a 2.62 ERA in 117 innings and holding opponents to a .206 average.

Smoltz proved particularly dominating during the last two months. From Aug. 5 through Oct. 5, he went 8-1 with a 1.49 ERA — including a complete game to clinch the division for the Braves. He carried that success into the postseason, when he tossed a complete-game shutout  on the road in Game 7 of the NLCS to beat the Pirates and send the Braves to the World Series, then pitched seven strong innings in Game 4 before dueling Jack Morris in perhaps the most memorable Game 7 in history.

Smoltz finished 1991 with a 14-13 record and an ERA of 3.80 in 229 2/3 innings. The media gave those mid-season psychology sessions a lot of credit for his turnaround, but Smoltz would later say the therapy played only a small role.

Still, overcoming his own doubts after the 2-11 start was key.

“When you start having doubt, you start creating and atmosphere of ‘things are going to go wrong,’ and they will,” Smoltz told “The Dan Patrick Show” in 2014. “… If you say ‘don’t hang a slider’ or ‘don’t leave this pitch (up),’ … you start having negative thoughts, and those negative thoughts become positive reinforcement for what you don’t want to do.”

Whether the result of talks with Llewellyn, pitching skill, determination or a combination of the three, it’s clear that Smoltz’s turnaround in 1991 began July 12 against the Cardinals. And the turnaround started in the first inning on the 3-1 pitch to Perry — the pitch that, it seems, changed everything.

Follow the logic:

The 3-1 pitch to Perry changed the direction of the inning, which changed the direction of the game, which gave Smoltz a needed confidence boost, which led to continued success down the stretch, which led to a dominant postseason, which led to more confidence and more growth, which led to years of excellence as a starter, which, despite having to reinvent himself after arm troubles, led to three years of excellence as a closer, which led to another successful stint as a starter, which made Smoltz a unique pitcher in baseball history, which stamped his ticket to Cooperstown.

Of course, it’s possible Smoltz could’ve failed to retire Perry and still gone on to a Hall of Fame career. But it’s also possible, perhaps probable, it would’ve caused his ugly season to continue and prompted a demotion to the bullpen or the minors. From there, it’s anyone’s guess the direction his career might’ve taken.

Fortunately for Smoltz, and for the Braves, the what-ifs don’t matter. A new pitcher emerged on July 12, 1991, one who became a dominating presence, who forged a reputation as one of the best postseason performers of all time, who wanted the ball when it mattered most — and who you wanted to have it.

Eight All-Star Games, the 1992 NLCS MVP, the 1996 NL Cy Young Award, the 2002 Rolaids Relief Award, 213 wins, 154 saves and 3,084 strikeouts.

That pitcher enters the Hall of Fame on Sunday.

A pitcher who found his way on a 3-1 fastball to Gerald Perry.