Monday, May 29, 2006

Randy Looking Better

Randy Johnson just had his no-hit attempt broken up with 2 outs in the 6th inning. As it turns out, the last time the Tigers were no-hit was in 1990 and it was by Randy Johnson.

Johnson still doesn't look dominant by any means. He has 4 strikeouts through 6 innings. However, his location is so much better. He's constantly keeping hte ball down. The only pitches that have been up at all have also been inside enough where the batter had to get out of the way of the pitch. On most pitches Jorge Posada has been signalling to him to keep the ball down, hitting his hand or his glove on the dirt on many pitches before Johnson throws.

The pitch that the no-hit bid got broken up on was a terrific pitch. It was about 3 inches off the ground on the outside part of the plate that Ivan Rodriguez somehow went down and hit the opposite way for a clean single.

Johnson is pitching a much smarter game today, but still not the dominant Johnson of the past. His stuff still doesn't look good enough for him to get away with mistakes like he used to be able to. However, if he pitches intelligently like this, and keeps the ball down, he'll be able to win a lot of games this way.

2 comments:

Ross said...

Randy Johnson gave up a bloop double to start the 7th inning. Again it was a pitch exactly where Posada called for it. Joe Torre then took him out of the game.

Johnson had only thrown 91 pitches (although he threw a lot in the 6th inning).

I think there could be two reasons why Torre took him out. One could be that two of the last three hitters Johnson faced went the other way with the ball, and Torre was afraid they would continue to do this.

More than likely, Torre wanted to take him out before anything could go wrong, figuring Johnson needed the confidence boost.

Greg said...

That, and it's ungoldly hot in Detroit today (93 degrees, I think they said), so why force him?