PITCHERS BEWARE TMZSports.com
If Gerrit Cole and Jack Flaherty need some last-minute advice ahead of the start of Friday's World Series ... John Smoltz has them covered!!
The Hall of Fame pitcher told TMZ Sports out at LAX on Thursday -- some 24 hours before he steps into the booth to broadcast Game 1 of Fall Classic in Los Angeles -- that if he were in Cole and Flaherty's shoes ... it'd be all gas and no brakes.
"The only advice I have," said Smoltz, who's won a World Series before, "is pitch every inning like it's the ninth inning.