"A day after his third Red Sox start and Fenway Park debut, a 6-0 loss to the A's Monday night, John Smoltz remained confused with his outing - "I still shake my head,'' he said - and confident about his pitching.

After three starts, Smoltz feels he has pitched better than his 6.60 ERA and 0-2 record would indicate. In his first three starts, Smoltz thinks he has been "getting dinked a little bit'' and "giving up a hard hit every once in a while.''

There is one statistic that reinforces Smoltz's thinking. Opposing batters are hitting .370 on balls put in play - at-bats that are not home runs or strikeouts. The highest total in the entire league among pitchers with enough innings to qualify for the ERA title is .353, the batting average on balls put in play that belongs to Philadelphia's Cole Hamels.

This season, 73.2 percent of line drives have fallen in for hits. Smoltz's rate is nearly identical - 72.7 percent of the line drives he has allowed have been hits. Also, 20.8 percent of balls in play against Smoltz have been line drives, which is slightly above league average. Simply, through the limited sample size of three starts, Smoltz is allowing more base hits on groundballs and fly balls than the average pitcher.

Since the days leading up to his first start in Washington, Smoltz has repeated his pitching will be where he wants and expects it to be after four or five starts.

"I'm ahead of the curve, by the way,'' Smoltz said. "I'm not ahead of the curve statistically, but I'm ahead of the curve the way I'm throwing the baseball. There couldn't be two people that thought I would be throwing 93, 94 miles per hour. That's ahead of the curve.''"