BALTIMORE – Like all pitchers, Joe Smith knows the sinking feeling that sometimes comes the moment the ball leaves his hand.
But not like this.
Smith hadn’t even thrown his first pitch when he dropped the ball as he pulled it out of his glove to start his delivery, a balk that pushed in the tying run in the seventh.
Smith’s nightmare continued an inning later, when he gave up the go-ahead run in the Angels’ 3-2 loss to the Baltimore Orioles on Saturday, snapping a four-game winning streak.
Certainly, several of the 23 pitches Smith threw weren’t where he wanted them, but none of those was in his mind as much as the pitch he didn’t throw.