American Century Championship<\/a>, which takes place from July 10 through 12th and will be broadcast on NBC and Peacock.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe Braves \u2014 who have the best record in Major League Baseball at 38-19 \u2014 are off to an excellent start. Smoltz said the key moving forward is remaining healthy, something that they weren\u2019t able to do last season when they started out the year 0-9.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all health,\u201d Smoltz told Casino.org in an exclusive interview. \u201cTheir ability to stay healthy is going to be how they navigate the National League, which is loaded with teams. If they can keep their pitching staff healthy, they\u2019re going to be right there and can beat anybody. That\u2019s the problem, though. Last year was a perfect storm. They were not able to be healthy and they started the season 0-9. The opposite has happened this year. So quite different between the two extremes, and somewhere in the middle is what the Atlanta Braves can be.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pitching has been incredible with Chris Sale and Bryce Elder leading the way. Sale is one of the NL Cy Young favorites at the age of 37, registering a 1.89 ERA (third in the NL) and seven wins (second in the NL). Meanwhile, Elder is off to a strong start after a down year last season. Elder has a 2.50 ERA after posting a 5.30 ERA last season.<\/p>\n
While the pitching has been extremely strong and arguably their biggest strength, Smoltz hammers home the ability for the Braves to remain healthy when it comes to their position players.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve got to keep their position players healthy,\u201d Smoltz said. \u201cThat was something they didn\u2019t do last year. When they had the historic great offensive season (in 2021), everyone thought this was the model, that they cracked the code. There\u2019s no way to duplicate that. It was a historic baseball year, and they benefited from a lot of factors. Now they have to stay healthy. They have the roster that can compete with anybody, but that roster can\u2019t take injury after injury after injury.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smoltz: Dodgers still the team to beat<\/p>\n
Smoltz is high on the Braves and repeatedly brings up health as a main factor for how far this Atlanta squad can go. When asked if Atlanta has what it takes to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers \u2014 the defending back-to-back World Series champs \u2014 Smoltz said \u201cabsolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the Hall of Fame pitcher still gives the nod to the Dodgers as the favorites.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of dangerous teams in the National League, and one of those is the Atlanta Braves,\u201d Smoltz said. \u201cThe others: the Milwaukee Brewers, Philadelphia Phillies. San Diego\u2019s got one of the best bullpens ever. So there\u2019s a lot of components that are going to come into play for the National League.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think right now the healthiest team is the Atlanta Braves. But to say what the future holds, the Dodgers have assimilated the best roster all together. And in that case, I kind of give a nod to the Dodgers based on their roster. But it\u2019s still up in the air based on all the other components. It\u2019s going to be hard-pressed to accumulate the kind of roster that they did, unless you make some trades. They\u2019ve definitely got the head start over the rest of the teams.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smoltz: I expect Blue Jays to make playoffs<\/p>\n
When shifting gears to the defending AL champions, the Toronto Blue Jays, the team is off to a slow start. They\u2019re currently below .500 through the first one-third of the season and are dealing with injuries, such as to key starter Dylan Cease.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, closer Louis Varland has been one of the strong points of the team, registering a 0.31 ERA through the early portion of the season. Smoltz still believes the Jays will bounce back and make a playoff run.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have not seen him pitch (too much) and I haven\u2019t covered him yet, so haven\u2019t seen that aspect yet,\u201d Smoltz said. \u201cBut the Blue Jays look like they\u2019re rounding back in shape after what was an incredible year before. They\u2019ve had their share of injuries, and I still think they\u2019re a team that is going to be in the playoffs before it\u2019s all said and done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smoltz said the Cease injury is going to test the Blue Jays.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery injury is a factor, especially when you\u2019re talking about a starter, and this has been the byproduct of what baseball has established,\u201d Smoltz said. \u201cThey don\u2019t have answers to it. So, when you don\u2019t have answers to it, you have to deal with whatever comes down the pike, and what\u2019s coming down the pike for most major league teams is if you don\u2019t have eight or nine starters to get through the season, you\u2019re not getting through the season. You\u2019re not going to have a successful campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that\u2019s what teams, unfortunately, are trying to figure out. How do I create depth instead of how do I create the ability to stay healthy? That has never been a priority, and until that changes, we\u2019re going to have this for the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smoltz talks American Century Championship, U.S. Senior Open qualifying<\/p>\n
While the MLB season is in its early stages, Smoltz is preparing for the American Century Championship, an annual celebrity golf event he\u2019s participated in for years. The former Braves pitcher has finished second multiple times but has never won the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, on this side it\u2019s everything,\u201d said Smoltz of the golf event. \u201cWhen you think about a calendar time of year that I lock in, I want nothing to get in the way of this event. It\u2019s special. The invite is special. It\u2019s hard to get and I\u2019m not taking it for granted. I love everything about it. Time of year, the venue, obviously the cause of American Century, and what we do is second to none. And let\u2019s face it, it\u2019s competition. It\u2019s an elite tournament. I definitely want to win the tournament, that\u2019s been my mindset forever, and I\u2019ve come close, but I haven\u2019t done it.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked who is the best young golfer in the tournament, Smoltz quickly points to Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry, who has won the event before.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best young golfer, and who\u2019s active and in great shape, and certainly has the ability to play the game, obviously, Steph Curry is one of those players,\u201d Smoltz said. \u201cSteph had a dramatic win over Mardy Fish, Joe Pavelski. When it comes down to it, there\u2019s a lot of people that have a chance to win it, but Tony Romo, Annika S\u00f6renstam. It\u2019s a matter of basically being able to navigate those greens and understand what you\u2019ve got to do based on the point system to get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smoltz just advanced to the final stage of qualifying for the U.S. Senior Open, something he did in 2018. The 59-year-old hopes to accomplish the feat again beginning in Jupiter, Florida at The Bears Club on June 3.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to see where I can take golf,\u201d Smoltz said. \u201cThis is the challenge before me. I\u2019ve done it once. It\u2019s one of the hardest things there is to do in golf, and I want to be able to show that once was not a fluke. I\u2019ve got one more round to prove it, and hopefully I can do that on my end. But it\u2019s going to take a really, really good golf round against a lot of really, really good players. My game is rounding into shape, but it only matters when you tee it up that day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Posted on: June 2, 2026, 07:28h.\u00a0 Last updated on: June 2, 2026, 07:28h. John Smoltz is regarded as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2394],"tags":[191,46,4166,5,192,4],"class_list":["post-715376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-atlanta-braves","tag-atlanta","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-atlantabraves","tag-baseball","tag-braves","tag-mlb"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116680619744861464","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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Atlanta Braves pitcher John Smoltz delivers a pitch during the game against the Washington Nationals at Turner Field in Atlanta, GA on May 12, 2006. The Braves beat the Nationals 6-2. (Photo by Mike Zarrilli\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n