The Muffled and Biased Screams of a Once Promising Season Suddenly Slipping Away

Deep breaths are necessary to ensure the absence of obscenities. That's what the "serenity now" voice in my head keeps telling me as I scramble to withdraw fantasy league trade offers and to keep hitting refresh on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's webpage, hoping they screwed up and John Smoltz really isn't out for the season.

Obviously I know that's all delusion and the longest tenured Brave on the roster (and my favorite baseball player in the history of my reasonably short life, for whatever that's worth) is done for the season and maybe for his career.

The repercussions on this are varying, and while tacking on "vast" to that might be a stretch, for a Braves fan, it is pretty painful to come to the realization of how this season -- which still has a lot of promise -- could quickly be unfolding into a freefalling nightmare.

We are -- to play the schizophrenic optimist here -- just three and a half games back of the surging Phils in the NL East. We have the second best home record in the bigs (despite the worst road record). Our pitching staff has allowed, as Jon Bois points out, the least runs in the bigs, despite being classified, at best, as patchwork. (No offense to the guys who have stepped up this year. Acting like injuries haven't ravaged this staff would be denial though.)

But losing Smoltz changes everything. Maybe I'm insane, but he seems like the string that holds everything together through some combination of talent and leadership. And frankly, I'm blanking terrified that it's all going to really unravel now that he's gone.

Rafael Soriano can close and Mike Gonzalez will be back soon, but jeebus, between Jurrjens, Campillo and Reyes with blisters and Huddy's hammy, all five of our starting pitchers are dealing with some kind of injury right now, assuming you count osteoporosis.

I know Tex hasn't heated up but Chipper hasn't cooled either. And I also know that Smoltz -- if this is the end of the line for him (he said, weeping onto his keyboard) -- gets to go out as a starter and with 3,000 K's, which ain't all bad.

And I'm fully aware that the Bravos have surprised before and that 2008 isn't donecakes just quite yet. Don't get me wrong, I'm not losing the faith/cashing chips/etc just yet. We have a slew of good young arms and our offense is up there with the best in the league, personnel wise. But I'd be lying if I tried to tell you this ordeal gave me any sort of remotely good feeling about the way 2008 is going to play out.