May 07 2007 09:05 AM
I'll open with special guest observations from the sometimes great Marty Noble.
Notes: Smith a man of ritual
Right-hander has extended process of uniform preparation
By Marty Noble / MLB.comPHOENIX -- The ritual began while Joe Smith was learning his craft at Wright State and regularly enduring a rather benign wardrobe malfunction. The bottom of the legs of his uniform pants would ride up and show more of his socks than Smith preferred. He found it necessary to make an adjustment.
Joe Smith has yet to allow a run in 17 appearances entering Sunday's action. (Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images)
That one adjustment, almost unnoticed when it began, has begat a series of uniform pulls and tugs that, over time, have become a ritual for the Mets rookie reliever, one that is neither inconspicuous or rare.
Watch him. After each out, except the final out of an inning, Smith walks to the first base side of the mound, faces the rubber, bends at the waist and "fixes" himself.
It is a four-stage process that executes with almost drill-team precision. First, he tugs at the bottom on his pant legs -- one hand on each leg. Then he adjusts the bottom of his "sliders," the long shorts worn under his uniform for protection again sliding burns (were he ever to reach base and need to slide). Again, one hand on each leg and a tug, another move of symmetry.
As he stands straight, Smith then appears to adjust the front of his belt when it fact he is trying to conceal an annoying tag inside the waist of his uniform pants. Stage 3 of the ritual also is a two-hand operation.
And, finally, standing straight, he adjusts his cap with two hands. One, two, three, four. And only then will he return to the rubber and go about his business.
The whole idea began innocently enough because of a need to feel comfortable in his uniform. Now, though, if Smith doesn't perform the four-stage ritual, he feels uncomfortable in his own skin.
"When I got to Brooklyn [his first Minor League assignment after he was drafted last summer], I figured I'd stop so I wouldn't be made fun of," he says. "But the first time I didn't do it, I pitched horrible. So I said 'Let them get on me. I'd rather pitch well.'"
His Mets teammates have noticed, of course -- little goes unrecognized, and all is fodder for clubhouse jockeying. But they hardly need ammunition. As Paul Lo Duca said, "He's a rookie, we've got all kinds of things."
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Smith's performance has made him a conspicuous rookie. He has yet to allow a run in 15 1/3 innings and, even when he has allowed inherited runners to score, mitigating circumstances have existed. The first scored on a Baltimore chop by Edgar Renteria April 7. Renteria couldn't get a good swing on Smith's slider.
No other of Smith's first 13 inherited runners scored. But he allowed two to score Saturday night when pinch-hit Miguel Montero hit a double in the seventh inning of the Mets' 6-2 victory against the Diamondbacks. That hit wasn't tainted. But Jose Reyes had dropped a ball at second base before he could make a relay to first base for what would have been an inning-ending double play.
Marty Noble is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
