Growing up in Acworth, Georgia, Clarke Schmidt idolized Chipper Jones.
As a pitcher, Schmidt also gravitated toward Tim Hudson, but it was Jones’ No. 10 that Schmidt chose to wear on the diamond. A Braves fan, the Allatoona High School standout often attended games at old Turner Field, which used to be roughly 45 minutes from Acworth.
Now Atlanta plays at Truist Park, where Schmidt will start on Monday night when the Yankees begin a three-game series against the Braves. He expects to have 30-40 friends and family members in attendance, including his parents, Renee and Dwight, and grandmother, Janet.
“It’ll be good to catch up with everybody, see everybody,” Schmidt told the Daily News. “It’s August, so it’s been a while since you can kind of catch up with friends and stuff like that. It’ll be good to get a taste of home.”
Schmidt’s parents and grandmother will sit close to the Yankees’ dugout, where Renee knows her son will be able to hear her real-time feedback. In addition to coordinating lots of tickets, the family also plans on hosting a postgame gathering at a nearby wine bar in The Battery.
“We are really looking forward to it, though the Braves are a little bit scary right now,” Renee told the News. “He’ll welcome the challenge. He’s probably gonna have a little bit of anxiety. Not nervousness, but just because he’s home.”
Indeed, the Braves are scary, as they boast the best record in baseball and hung 21 runs on the Mets on Saturday. Earlier this year, back when Schmidt struggled to find his footing as a big league starter, such a matchup would have left the Yankees with little hope.
But Schmidt, 27, has made massive strides after opening the season with a 6.30 ERA over his first nine starts. He’s made 15 appearances since, recording a 3.12 ERA over 75 innings. In 14 starts over that stretch, the righty has allowed no more than three runs in a game.
Schmidt has cited a number of factors for his remarkable turnaround and consistency, including better pitch selection and game-planning.
Back in spring training, Schmidt noted that he sometimes like to check the shapes of his pitches during games to see how they’re moving. But obsessing over that can hinder execution and command, which should be a pitcher’s “first priority,” according to the ace of the Yankees’ staff.
“It’s just hard for these young guys,” Gerrit Cole, who has taken Schmidt under his wing, told the News. “You get a job around here and you get promoted around here — not the Yankees, but just in the industry in general — just by velocity and where your stuff shows up on a computer. And by and large, those things are coachable. Those things are tangible. It’s kind of low-hanging fruit to a certain extent. That’s just pounded in all these guys’ minds, and it’s like the most important thing about pitching is still command. Your slider can break like 20 feet, and if it’s not in the strike zone, he’s not gonna swing. And your slider can not break 20 feet, and if you put it on a dime, down and away, you’re good. It doesn’t need to be 20 feet.
“[Schmidt] just started finding that it’s less about the total movement and less about how nasty the pitch is in a vacuum.”
While always a confident guy, Schmidt also said that he’s improved in that department. His recent run of success has certainly given him reason to.
“I’ve had kind of a track record these past months where I feel comfortable every time I go out there,” Schmidt said. “It kind of feels like I’m throwing in my backyard, when before it was like I would go out there and almost put too much pressure on the moment. I would build these games up and I would try to be too perfect, when obviously that’s not possible.”
That self-inflicted pressure often led to disastrous results for Schmidt early in the season. But the Yankees, thin on healthy starting pitchers all season, never demoted Schmidt or moved him to the bullpen.
Schmidt said he never worried about such decisions and that there was an unspoken understanding that he would keep getting starts so long as showed signs of improvement.
Not having to “look over my shoulder” every start put Schmidt at ease. And the chance to flop in the majors — which Cole said offers “tremendous value” is often “overlooked by the industry” — helped Schmidt find his identity on the mound.
“If they wouldn’t have let me keep having that failure early in the season and they kind of just pulled the plug on it and either optioned me or just said, ‘Hey, we’re gonna put you back in the bullpen,’ then I think this is a completely different story,” Schmidt said. “But for them to have the patience with me and to continue to let me develop and just giving me that opportunity to fail in the big leagues… it’s really been a blessing, honestly.
“It’s just been really good to be able to develop in the big leagues, which is kind of rare for the Yankees. When you’re first here, if you’re not getting your job done, it’s kind of next guy up. But obviously, sometimes you have unique circumstances and you get a little longer leash than others, so I’m very thankful for that opportunity. And obviously, it’s paid off.”
Schmidt and the Yankees are hoping he will continue to show his growth against the Braves. He knows the homecoming start “poses a good challenge” against a formidable opponent, but Schmidt is looking forward to the test.
His loved ones, meanwhile, are eager to see him, no matter how he fares.
“We’re very excited, of course, and quite proud that he’ll be in his hometown,” Renee said. “He’ll have a good support group.”