Bally Sports South will be adding an additional member to its television broadcast booth for broadcasts of Atlanta Braves baseball for two upcoming series. MLB on FOX analyst John Smoltz is set to join play-by-play announcer Brandon Gaudin and lead analyst Jeff Francoeur for three games next week against the New York Yankees from Truist Park in Smyrna, Ga. Coverage begins at 6:30 p.m. EST for all the matchups on Bally Sports South, and it will be the second time he appears on the network this season. Smoltz will return to the airwaves in September when the Braves face off against the Philadelphia Phillies for a four-game series.
When Smoltz was first on the regional sports network earlier in the season, he was part of a panel of Braves alumni including Chipper Jones and Tom Glavine in a matchup against the New York Mets. The Braves won the contest on a walk-off home run by Ozzie Albies, officially sealing a three-game sweep of their archrivals. According to the network, the telecast had a season-high 4.51 household rating and garnered more than 10 million impressions on social media.
“I prepare as if I was pitching against those teams and how I would attack those lineups,” Smoltz told Barrett Sports Media in an interview earlier this year. “I try to bring a perspective to somebody who’s never watched the game to somebody who’s watched it their whole life…. It’s a very difficult sport to play and trying to get the viewer [to] understand why certain things happen the way they happen, and why players do things the way they do them.”
Smoltz is the lead analyst for MLB on FOX games and has broadcast the World Series since the 2016 season – the year in which the Chicago Cubs snapped a 108-year championship drought. He recently began working with new lead play-by-play announcer Joe Davis, and is frequently featured as a guest on the Flippin’ Bats podcast with Ben Verlander and Alex Curry. When in the Braves booth, he will work with Francoeur and Gaudin, the latter of whom is in his first season as the play-by-play voice of the team. Gaudin took over for Chip Caray after he was hired by the St. Louis Cardinals to call their games on Bally Sports Midwest.
