John Smoltz has been the worst part of giant Yankees-Blue Jays ALDS letdown

When your team goes down 2-0 in a best-of-five series, as the New York Yankees have against the Toronto Blue Jays, you understandably want to find someone to divert your anger and rage onto. 

Luckily for Yankees fans, they have a familiar target in Fox Sports’ John Smoltz.

Smoltz, an Atlanta Braves legend and Hall of Fame pitcher, is working the Yankees-Blue Jays series alongside Joe Davis, Ken Rosenthal, and Tom Verducci. That foursome remains Fox’s lead MLB broadcast booth and will call the World Series later this month, an event unlikely to feature the Yankees, who are only nine innings away from elimination.

The Davis and Smoltz duo provided the narration for the Yankees’ two blowout losses in Toronto, and a glance at social media shows plenty of listeners who may have opted for the mute button or a radio feed. That’s nothing new for baseball fans, who have spent much of the last decade critiquing Smoltz’s color commentary and postseason insight.

Social media is raging at John Smoltz once again

Considering that the Yankees have only missed the postseason once since the start of 2017, they’ve heard plenty of Smoltz over the years. He joined Joe Buck on Fox’s No. 1 broadcast team in 2016 and has remained a constant presence since, teaming up with Davis following Buck’s departure in 2022.

Smoltz, as is often the case with high-profile lead commentators, is frequently a target of criticism and mockery on social media. Various Twitter/X users accused Smoltz of rooting against the Yankees, who defeated Smoltz’s Braves in the 1996 and 1999 World Series.  

Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Randy Wilkins sarcastically quoted a comment that Smoltz made in Game 1 when the eight-time All-Star suggested that teams stood a better chance of winning if they didn’t allow any runs across an entire series.

“Lol,” Wilkins wrote on Twitter/X. “Thanks John.”

Although Green Bay Packers content creator Aaron Nagler didn’t specifically single out Smoltz, he suggested that Major League Baseball must create an alternate audio feed featuring the team’s hometown announcers. The Yankees, for example, would likely have the YES Network’s Michael Kay and Joe Girardi on that feed.

“It’s absurd that fans go through an entire season with the local folks then are saddled with a national crew with zero insight on the teams they’re calling,” Nagler commented in a post that had over 1.8 million views as of Monday morning.

Is John Smoltz really as bad as social media makes him out to be?

Social media has made it easier than ever for fans to blast announcers, especially those calling a postseason game. Tim McCarver spent decades bearing the brunt of criticism for his work at Fox. ESPN frequently changed its “Monday Night Football” broadcast teams before Buck and Troy Aikman left Fox for ESPN in 2022. Does anyone else remember the BoogerMobile?

Announcing is a hard gig, and we don’t mean that as a copout. As easy as it is to suggest that announcers stay quiet and let a game breathe, such a philosophy only works in certain moments. If Aaron Judge hits a clutch home run in Game 3 and Yankee Stadium explodes in joy, there’s no need for Davis and Smoltz to talk over the moment of the crowd chanting “M-V-P” nonstop. Asking them to stay quiet for a 2-2 pitch in the fifth inning, though, is far more unrealistic. 

Smoltz is fine, and Fox has shown no indication that they’ll overhaul the broadcast booth anytime soon. That might not be ideal news for Yankees fans, but if the choice is between listening to Smoltz or not making the playoffs, we think we know which option they’d rather have.

Besides, hearing Smoltz call games in October is a sign that your team is making a deep postseason run, and that should be all that matters. If you really don’t want to hear Smoltz state the obvious or take a jab at advanced metrics, there’s a reason why the mute button exists. 

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