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Sunday, May 05, 2002

By Steve Ziants, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

After Randy Johnson struck out 17 and utterly dominated the Colorado Rockies in a two-hitter last month, veteran Rocky Mountain News baseball writer Tracy Ringolsby felt compelled to extrapolate the remaining five months of the schedule in order to find some good news to offer his readers the next morning. The good news? The Rockies would miss Johnson in the next three series between the NL West Division teams and not have to face him again until Sept. 29 -- the final day of the season.

Such is the collective knocking of knees that Johnson and cohort Curt Schilling elicit throughout baseball when the Diamondbacks show up on the schedule.

The Pirates must be wondering where they can get that paper boy. Considering how they've played through the first part of their nine-game western trip (1-3 before last night), they could use a little good news. Instead, a team that found a way to play 27 innings at Coors Field this week and manage only eight hits will get both Johnson (6-0) and Schilling (6-1) when they visit Bank One Ballpark beginning tomorrow -- Johnson tomorrow and Schilling Wednesday.

Frankly, Robert Blake faces better odds. Their numbers have moved beyond stat-geek minutiae into the stuff of burgeoning legend. Johnson and Schilling are 12-1 this season with a 2.31 ERA. The rest of the Arizona staff is 7-10 with a 5.43 ERA. Since the beginning of 2001, they are 64-14 (.821) with a 2.67 ERA; the rest of the staff 57-72. They are once again 1-2 on the major-league strikeout charts, Schilling with 75 and Johnson with 61.

How absurdly dominant are these numbers? In 1904, when Jack Chesbro set the modern record for wins in a season with 41, his winning percentage was .774. When the Mariners won a record-tying 116 games last season, their winning percentage was a mere .716. Their 665 strikeouts in 2001 obliterated the previous mark for teammates of 624 set by Angels Nolan Ryan and Bill Singer in 1974.

They have become synonymous with one another. Like Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. Like Butch and Sundance. A two-armed human Cy Young Award joined by numbers, but also by the World Series MVP they shared, by their 1-2 finish in voting for the NL Cy Young, by the 2001 Sportsman of the Year honor they received from Sports Illustrated.

By themselves for a decade, they were all-stars. Together now for nearly two seasons, they have become special.

"Randy has become a better prepared pitcher in terms of his association with Curt, and I think Randy has relaxed and enjoyed things a little more seeing how extroverted Schill is," Arizona Manager Bob Brenly told Amy Shipley of the Washington Post last week. "Even though they downplay it, I think there is a real healthy competition between the two of them."

The shadow they cast is as prevailing as the disparity of those numbers is great.

"It's fear," Arizona first baseman Mark Grace says of how opponents view them. "Not fear of getting hit with the ball. Fear of getting embarrassed in front of a lot of people."

They are why tomorrow's first pitch was pushed back to 9:35 p.m. so ESPN2, expecting Johnson to pitch, could show the game nationally.

It hardly seems fair for a Pirates lineup hitting so poorly that it became the first team to be shut out on consecutive nights in the eight-year history of Coors Field Tuesday and Wednesday, then was nearly no-hit Thursday.

If there is a note of hope, the Pirates were the only team other than the Giants to beat both Schilling and Johnson last season. But even in beating Johnson, 5-1, Aug. 23 at PNC Park, Johnson wowed the crowd. He struck out 16 in seven innings, including the side in the sixth on nine pitches -- just the 33rd time in history a pitcher has turned the trick.

But why listen to The Guy In The Stands? One of their peers, a fellow National League pitcher took a turn recently.

"They are on another level. They throw the way everybody wants to throw. They've got unbelievable stuff. Plus, they pitch."

The admiring peer?

Greg Maddux.

Friends and enemies

Diamondbacks owner Jerry Colangelo has a reputation for being a players' owner. It was on the basis of that relationship that several players volunteered to rework their contracts before 2001, a move that likely provided enough financial stability to pave the way to the world championship in November.

Dan Bickley of the Arizona Republic reports that Colangelo tried to capitalize on that relationship again, this time for the good of the game. Apparently with the blessing of the commissioner's office, Colangelo gave a copy of the team's financial summary to a handful of players in an effort to bridge the gap of distrust between union and management.

The response was less than positive.

"I'm not questioning Jerry's ethics," Curt Schilling told Bickley. "You know he's honest. But there's a lot more to those numbers than what they are. There are a million questions that come with looking at numbers."

That such skepticism exists in one of the game's good player-owner strongholds might say more than we'd like to know about the summer ahead.

"This whole thing is starting to look eerily familiar," said Brian Anderson, recalling the lockout of 1994. "And it could get real ugly."

The rest of the story

Not everyone involved was able to revel in Mike Cameron's four-home run game Thursday in Chicago. Away from the bright lights of history, Jon Rauch, who gave up Cameron's first home run, and Jim Parque, who dished up the last three, were demoted to Class AAA Charlotte minutes after the game. While neither Rauch (9.82 ERA) nor Parque (9.00) had been particularly effective the first month of the season, White Sox Manager Jerry Manuel didn't deny the Cameron factor. Said Manuel about Parque: "He's got to get his arm strength up and he's got to get guys out. Like Cameron."

Cammerin' Mike

Random notes from here and there on Mike Cameron's four-home run night vs. the White Sox:

Greeting Cameron at the entrance to the clubhouse after the game was a gauntlet of applauding Mariners teammates. Can one player receive a greater gift from another than their approval? ... "For one night, I was as good as anybody has been in the game," he said. ... Just think: The game wasn't official yet when Cameron hit homer No. 4 in the top of the fifth inning. The way the weather was in the Midwest this week, would a sudden, game-ending weather front been out of the question? ... "I wish everyone in the world could have a day like that, just the feeling I had," he said. "It was like a willow there in south Georgia, just hanging out in the wind." The Guy doesn't quite get that one, but it it sounded, like, deep, man.

No help wanted

It was a week in which we saw no-hitters, near no-hitters, four home runs in a game, teammates jack back-to-back twice in one inning and another team go back-to-back-to-back twice in six days. With all that, fans were probably too busy to take note of the Devil Rays' "gem" Wednesday. They managed to lose to the Twins, 5-3, without recording a single assist in the field. Tough, you say? It's a feat achieved only six times before. Allow infield coach Tom Foley to put it in perspective. "Wow," he exclaimed(?) to Mark Topkin of the St. Petersburg Times. "You know what that means? Nothing." A Guy note: Some people just take all the fun out of this game.

Getting around

Record freaks appreciate what Mets pitcher Al Leiter did Tuesday night even if its significance in the world of baseball minutiae is lost on him. He became the first pitcher to beat all 30 major-league teams when he beat Arizona, 10-1. "This was it," cracked Leiter, who is 120-91 in 13 years pitching for the Yankees, Blue Jays, Marlins and Mets. "It was Hall of Fame, Cy Young, world championship and beat every team."

FYI: Dodgers pitcher Kevin Brown could duplicate the feat. He needs only to beat Tampa Bay, which the Dodgers face in interleague play June 10-12.

Gosh darn it!

Reds first baseman Sean "The Mayor" Casey (Upper St. Clair) gets along with everyone. So who was that guy in Casey's uniform last Sunday after Giants pitcher Felix Rodriguez drilled him in the arm with a pitch in the bottom of the eighth? It came in apparent retaliation for Reds pitcher Gabe White throwing a pitch over Barry Bonds' head in the top of the inning.

Casey slammed down his helmet and yelled toward the mound. "That's as mad as I've ever been," Casey said afterward.

Responded Rodriguez: "Sometimes if they want to cry, you've got to let them cry."

Told of Rodriguez's comment, Casey's temper flashed again. "Why doesn't he come over here and say those quotes? If he's got problems, tell him to talk to me in San Francisco."

Good, wild and ugly

Box score lines of the week:

Good: Mike Cameron, Mariners, Thursday: 5 AB, 4 R, 4 H, 4 HRs, 4 RBIs in a 15-4 win vs. the White Sox. It's hard to know which facet of his performance was more astounding: 1) that he hit all four home runs in the first five innings; 2) that he found a way to overshadow that he and Bret Boone hit back-to-back homers twice in the first inning -- a first in major-league history; or 3) that he is now on a list that includes Willie Mays, Mike Schmidt and Lou Gehrig.

Wild: David Eckstein, Angels, Sunday: 7 AB, 1 R, 1 H, 1 HR, 4 RBIs in an 8-5 win vs. Blue Jays. His one hit was a walk-off grand slam in the 14th inning, making him the 21st player in history to hit grand slams in consecutive games. Unlikely? His number of career homers entering last weekend: 4.

Ugly: Josh Towers, Orioles, Wednesday: 5 IP, 11 H, 10 R, 10 ER, 0 BB, 3 Ks in a 15-3 loss vs. the Red Sox. Never had an Orioles reliever given up so many runs. "I think it was my turn," he said. "Everyone gets one of those days, and I've never had one before." A little too much live-and-let-live for Orioles' management? Baltimore demoted him to Class AAA Rochester the next day.

Series of the week

Red Sox (19-7) at Athletics (16-14), Tuesday-Thursday, Network Associates Coliseum. ... They say good pitching can beat good hitting. What happens when both teams have good pitching and good hitting? ... Oakland has a major-league high 45 homers, including nine from Eric Chavez. ... Boston leads the majors with a .300 team average, led by former Athletic Johnny Damon (.350, fourth in the AL) ... On the mound, the Red Sox have an AL-best 3.38 ERA; the A's were No. 3 until a bad start to their weekend in Chicago.

This 'n' that

A little baseball advice to Pirates owner Kevin McClatchy as he toes the line on General Robinson Street this morning: It's not a sprint, it's a marathon. ... Kenny Lofton's I'll-Show-Cleveland start (.342, .414 OBP, 29 runs, 14 SBs) already has the White Sox thinking contract extension. "I haven't been stupid since the fifth grade, so yeah," GM Ken Williams said when the idea was broached. ... New Dodgers closer Eric Gagne went into the weekend with nine saves, second in the NL, thanks to an improving changeup/split-fingered, cartoonish sort of thing that might best be described as "wascally." "It's a Bugs Bunny changeup," says catcher Paul Lo Duca. "It's strike one, strike two, strike three, you're out. It's that devastating." ...

Clint Hurdle found time to wax poetic upon replacing Buddy Bell as Rockies manager April 26. "You know, I woke up a hitting coach and went to bed a manager." ... As of Monday, the Barry Bonds Lifetime Home Run Counter on the fence at Pac Bell Park is sponsored by Diamond of California, a leading nut producer. Please insert your own punchline. ... While Braves teammate Greg Maddux is struggling, Tom Glavine (5-1) is as good as ever. In fact, he's been so good that even though he allowed just one run and three hits in eight innings of a 3-1 win vs. Milwaukee Wednesday, his ERA rose -- to 0.93. ...

The Pirates not only are the first team to be shut out on consecutive nights at Coors Field (Tuesday-Wednesday), but the first team to go homerless in two series in the eight-year history of homer heaven. To put that in perspective, St. Louis (1996) and Philadelphia (last weekend) are the only others to have been held without a homer once. ... For the second time in a month, the Indians established a new low at Jacobs Field Wednesday when 23,536 turned out for a 7-2 loss to the Angels. ... Toronto joined the growing list of teams experiencing record-low crowds. Only 12,571 turned out at SkyDome for a 10-3 loss to Texas Tuesday. ... Said Ramon Ortiz, the benefactor in Anaheim's 21-2 throttling of Cleveland Tuesday: "Twenty-one runs. You can pitch with that." Ramon, even The Guy could pitch with that. ... The Indians have been outscored, 118-44, in their 3-15 slide. ... Joe Torre became the fifth manager to win 600 games with the Yankees Thursday, joining Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel, Miller Huggins and Ralph Houk. ... Through Thursday, Twins backup catcher Tom Prince had as many homers (3) in 23 at-bats as Tampa Bay's 3-4-5 hitters had in 308.

Shot and a jeer

Shot: Luis Pujols has been manager of the Tigers for 26 days and already he's 26th on the major-league seniority list.

Jeer: To the Keeper of Between Innings Music at PNC Park. How fair was that to stack heavyweights Otis Day & The Knights and local favorite Donnie Iris against "The Cookie Monster Song" Sunday? Where's your heart, man?

Steve Ziants can be reached at sziants@post-gazette.com.