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PITCHER’S GEM Very few pitchers in the game of baseball can cause a team to completely rearrange their lineup. Especially the three-time defending World Series Champions. Randy Johnson is one of those few pitchers. Yankees manager Joe Torre did the same thing many other managers did throughout the season when facing Johnson, and that was to take out left-handed hitters. The New York lineup featured no Paul O’Neil. No David Justice. No Tino Martinez. After all, left handers hit just .196 off Johnson all year. Did it really matter though? A complete game, three-hit shutout. Johnson made 111 pitches in the game. He recorded 11 strikeouts, 11 ground outs and had just one walk. How’s that for dominant? Johnson’s performance could very well be one that is talked about for years as one of the most dominant performances in the World Series. Proof you ask? How about looking back for the last time a pitcher threw a three-hit shutout while striking out more than ten batters. You would have to look back to game seven in the 1965 Series when another dominant left-hander named Sandy Koufax struck out ten batters in a three-hit shutout for the Dodgers. The last time a pitcher threw a complete game shutout in his first career World Series start? Look back to 1988 in game two when Orel Hershiser threw a three-hit shutout in a win over the Oakland A’s. Tonight, Johnson joined those great pitchers with his performance. Every Yankee in the starting lineup struck out on the night, and Alfonso Soriano and Scott Brosius were each rung up twice. Two of the three hits given up by Johnson were in the eighth inning, with the hit to left by Soriano the only solid contact a Yankee hitter had all night. No Yankee runner made it past second base, and only one Yankee even made it that far. That eighth inning was the only jam Johnson faced in the game, if you can really call it a jam. It was more like a jelly, sort of like the hitter’s knees when standing in the box to face Johnson. New York got a leadoff single by Shane Spencer, followed by Soriano’s base hit. Two runners on base and no outs. Was this the time the Yankee bats would get to Johnson? Not a chance. Johnson responded by striking out Brosius, then getting pinch hitter Luis Sojo to ground into an inning ending double play. His domination was evident from the start of the game. Johnson struck out seven of the first nine Yankee hitters that came to the plate, becoming just the third pitcher to accomplish that feat. Those strikeouts not only kept the Yankees off the bases, but it put a sense of fear into anyone who stepped to the plate. I cannot help but think back to the beginning of this postseason, when the question of whether Johnson could win in the playoffs came up. After losing the second game of the NLDS to St. Louis, Johnson had recorded seven straight postseason losses. The questions were flying. Could the Big Unit win the big game? Need we ask anymore? Johnson has dominated since that loss to the Cardinals, and some would argue he was pretty good even during that loss. In that game, he gave up three runs on six hits and struck out nine in eight innings. His next outing was a complete game shutout against the Braves to give Arizona a 1-0 lead in the NLCS. Johnson gave up just three hits in that game, striking out 11 and walking just one. Sound familiar? Johnson has more than proved he can not only be a dominant regular season pitcher, but a dominant postseason pitcher as well. After all, his pitching gem turned in tonight was the first complete game shutout in the World Series in over seven years. The last time we saw a complete game shutout was back in 1993 in game five. In that game, the Philadelphia Phillies got a five-hit shutout to avoid elimination against the Toronto Blue Jays and force a game six. Maybe you have heard of the pitcher who threw that shutout. I’m pretty sure the Yankees have. His name
is Curt Schilling. |
