Smith back after ‘tough’ year
Veteran reliever opted out of 2020 season to be with his ailing mother
Reliever Joe Smith, who typically sports a fresh, tight haircut, pulled off his hat Friday to reveal what could double as a mop in the Astros’ clubhouse.
“I have no idea what’s going on,” Smith said with a chuckle of his surprisingly flowing locks. “You know how quarantine was — everybody just lets it go.”
Lance McCullers Jr. will debate Smith on the first part — McCullers said his fellow Astros pitcher always knows exactly what’s going on. It’s why McCullers texted Smith when he wanted to know if outfielder Michael Brantley was returning to the team in 2021 (he was).
“I figured Joe would have the scoop,” McCullers reasoned.
Smith did, and the Astros are glad to have the 36-year-old sage/ sidearmer back in the fold, in mentoring not only young pitchers but fresh-faced position players.
“Joe is one of the leaders on this team,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said. “Guys listen to him, they gravitate toward him, they follow him. Not only is it great to have Joe in the bullpen, but he’s a quality guy that we all trust.
“The front office trusts him, the players trust him, the coaches trust him.”
Last July in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Smith showed up to the Astros’ camp at Minute Maid Park in preparation for the shortened season, only to ultimately opt out of playing in 2020.
Smith and his wife, TNT broadcaster Allie LaForce, returned home to Ohio to be with his mother, Lee Smith, who was in the final stages of a battle with Huntington’s disease, a neurodegenerative condition with no cure. Lee died Aug. 6, and Joe said Friday that he’s glad he decided to return home — that baseball could wait.
“Being away from the team and watching them play was tough,” he said. “They’re out there grinding not only on the field, but obviously with everything they’re going through with all the (COVID) protocols to get a season in. And then the playoffs — that was pretty tough to watch.
“You want to be out there with the boys especially in that time, with as well as they were playing, but my decision was what it was, and I still feel comfortable with it.”
Before Smith signed with the Astros in 2017, Joe and Allie founded the HelpCureHD Foundation, a charity that provides emotional and financial support to Huntington’s patients. Smith has a 50 percent chance of inheriting Huntington’s disease from his mother, but he has chosen not to get tested.
Smith, who briefly considered returning to the Astros for the 2020 stretch run after his mother’s death, watched as his team finished the 60-game regular season 29-31 and barely made the postseason.
The Astros then won a best-ofthree wild card series against Minnesota, a best-of-five American League Division Series against Oakland, and pushed Tampa Bay to seven games in the American League Championship Series before bowing out a win shy of a third World Series appearance in four years.
“Once they got to the playoffs, that’s when you saw the team I knew,” Smith said.
Smith hasn’t pitched in a game since the 2019 World Series finale in Minute Maid Park. After last year’s layoff, he’s as rested as he’s been since early in his 15-year bigleague career.
“I feel good,” Smith said on the second day of workouts for pitchers and catchers in West Palm Beach, Fla. “Right now it’s just about building up and being smart with the intensity work … building intensity is one of the most important things. You go too fast, and that’s when something happens. It just derails your spring, and you’re playing catchup.”
The Astros, despite losing star center fielder George Springer to Toronto, should still be solid on offense, and pitching long has been a strength under coach Brent Strom. With a trying, emotional year behind him, Smith is happy to be back in the mix at Minute Maid.
“Our lineup is deep — everybody knows that,” Smith said. “We’re going to hit the ball, and we’re going to put up some runs. On the pitching side, we just have to do our job. We have the arms to do it.”