"His road back from shoulder surgery more than a year ago has been by turns encouraging and disconcerting, exciting and unnerving. He has hopscotched around the East Coast to minor-league locales such as Fort Myers, Augusta, Manchester, Greenville, Pawtucket, Syracuse, and back to Pawtucket - outposts he thought were way back in his rearview mirror.

But the work that he has put in since that surgery on June 10, 2008, will be put to the test possibly next week, when he makes his first big-league start since June 2, 2008. It will also be his first big-league start wearing a uniform other than that of the Atlanta Braves, the uniform he wore for 20 seasons, spanning parts of three decades.

Which is why he's hoping that weather won't push him into a debut start against the Braves.

"Oh, that possibility's crossed my mind 100 times," Smoltz said. "But, I think the reality is you got to do what's best for me and the team, not get caught up in a story.

"That would be a tough thing. For anybody that would be a very difficult thing to do. Come out of the gate, focusing on your first start alone is going to have its own issues, and to do it [against the Braves], that would probably be too much."

Instead, Smoltz, who turned 42 last month, will join his new mates in the home team's first-base dugout at Fenway Park Friday and look across the field to the visitors' dugout. The thoughts that will cross his mind will be unlike those of anyone else wearing a Boston uniform.

Because the road he has been on since signing with the Red Sox in January, leaving the Braves amid contention and verbal sparring, has also been about forgiveness and letting go - healing not only his shoulder.

"You know what's interesting is I literally had to do something today to get me to that point," said Smoltz, sitting in the home team's clubhouse at Fenway one afternoon last week. "I had to let go of everything that I may have hung on to when I left. I prayed this morning to let go of it. There are human feelings there that are things that you can take on.

"Emotions can be good for pitching and life, and they can be bad. And I think one thing that was starting to rule me was - I don't know if I want to use the regular words - but some emotions that weren't so good for me. I had to let them go and I had to give them up. And I feel like that process started today."