Boston's Francona May Be Gone
PHILLIPS: All right. Let's face it, it's what every baseball nut is talking about, the playoffs, but there may be even more talk about the two teams that didn't get in. TBS sportscaster and former pitcher John Smoltz working the playoffs. John, good to see you.</s>JOHN SMOLTZ, TBS BASEBALL ANALYST: Good morning.</s>PHILLIPS: All right. Let's start with the Red Sox manager, shall we? Terry Francona may lose his job. You know, you pitched for this guy, players loved him. That's what I'm told. What the heck happened?</s>SMOLTZ: Well, it's a -- you know there's going to be a lot of words that surround this scenario and I don't think they're accurate mainly because they lost their pitching staff, they had some injuries, they weren't able to pitch consecutive games to where this team was built to win the championship, there's no doubt. And when you have an historic month like September and you cannot find any pitchers to go out there and give you quality starts and because they were dealing with some injuries, it made it awfully tough on the offense, and when you're dealing with the mental toughness of a breakdown like this at an historic point, it's tough to deal with. And this has got to be one of the hardest thing that the Boston Red Sox have ever had to deal with, mainly because there's so much attention around them with the Yankees, the division, and so much expected of them that nobody saw this coming. And it really is an historic thing that you have to find a way to put away and not think about, but that's almost impossible.</s>PHILLIPS: Yes, I don't know how you manage, you know, or -- either team, Red Sox or Yankees when you've got this constant, you know, rivalry going on. All right. Let's talk about the collapse of the Braves now, shall we? A historic flop, to say the least. You pitched 20 seasons, right, with that team?</s>SMOLTZ: Yes.</s>PHILLIPS: So what do you think? I mean could this haunt them and play mind games for seasons to come?</s>SMOLTZ: Well, you know, they say it doesn't kill you to make you stronger and I think for these young guys who had to be the emergency starters who had again to fill in for some injuries it is very difficult to manage a team when you lose two big cogs in your starting rotation as Atlanta did. And the pressure of these young guys, I thought they did a remarkable job, to be honest with you, and then the inability then to win some games down the stretch becomes the focus, but you're limited as a manager in what you can do and I think for Atlanta's case, and again, in both cases, these teams were being chased by teams that got hot and got hot at the right time, and you never want to be in the sentence of a historic collapse and you never want to deal with the way that your season ends. But I think for Atlanta, I think they are going to be OK because the young pitching that they have can learn some incredible lessons down the stretch. They just didn't have many options, when you think about losing Hanson and Jurrjens, and that incredible bullpen did everything they could do.</s>PHILLIPS: Well, as a pitcher, I know tonight you're going to be watching Sabathia and Ver Lander and maybe we can recap Monday. What do you say?</s>SMOLTZ: Absolutely. This is one of those must-see TV games. The playoffs is great and when you have the two horses on the mound for these two teams, this is why they are where they are at and they need to ride those guys as hard as they can and a big, big game for CC. A lot of pressure on CC at home because he is going arguably against the guy who's had the greatest year in the last 20 or so years as the Triple Crown winner in Ver Lander. So I'm -- I just can't wait, I'm excited. Only other thing I wish I could do is --</s>PHILLIPS: You wish you were there.</s>SMOLTZ: Yes.</s>PHILLIPS: Yes, I was just going to say -- I knew it. You wish you were on the mound. John, thanks so much to. Great talking to you today.</s>SMOLTZ: My pleasure.</s>PHILLIPS: All right. Well, a new poll puts Herman Cain a strong third in the Republican White House race, that and more stories from our "Political Ticker," right after the break.