Randy Johnson got his 300th career victory yesterday as the San Francisco Giants defeated the Washington Nationals 5-1. Johnson pitched six innings, giving up only two hits and one unearned run (he had a no-hitter through four innings) as he got the 300th win in his first try.
Johnson got the victory by defeating the organization he started his career with, as he was drafted by and originally pitched in the majors for the Montreal Expos, the team that went on to become the Nationals. He’s the 24th major leaguer to reach the magical number, and only the sixth left hander. And I like to think that the Houston Astros helped to make this milestone happen.
The Astros acquired The Big Unit in a blockbuster trade at the trade deadline of the 1998 season. The Astros were fighting for a playoff spot at the time, and they were looking to solidify a pitching staff that was still missing Darryl Kile who had departed for Colorado during the off-season. Johnson, though only in his mid-30s at the time of the trade, was thought to be approaching washed-up status because of back problems which had limited his pitching with the Seattle Mariners that season, and his record with Seattle prior to the trade was only a pedestrian 9-10 with a 4.34 ERA.
But Johnson was electric with the Astros.
He started 11 games, completed four of those starts, and went 10-1 with
four shutouts. He struck out 116 batters in only 84.1 innings, while
giving up only 57 hits and 12 runs for an ERA of 1.28. And those
numbers don’t do Johnson’s time in Houston justice.
I worked
nearly every game that 1998 season. And I’ve never seen the Astrodome
more electrified than in those games Johnson started in Houston. That
includes rodeos, Oilers games, tractor pulls, and political
conventions. Johnson had this aura about him that year when he arrived,
and that aura extended into the stands. It was a fantastic experience
sitting at my home-plate perch watching The Big Unit just dominate the
opposition.
Remember that 1998 was the year of McGwire and Sosa
and the great home run chase. But Johnson shut down everybody. Nobody
stood a chance when he was pitching, not even McGwire and Sosa.
Johnson
departed the Astros after their playoff disappointment of 1998 — that
was the year they lost to the San Diego Padres in the first round and
not the Atlanta Braves. The Astros never made a real attempt to retain
him as he wanted at least a four-year deal and the Astros didn’t think
his back would hold up for four more years. But as the Astros have so
often been, they were wrong.
Johnson left the Astros for the
Arizona Diamondbacks where he went on to win four straight Cy Young
awards from 1999-2002 while sharing the 2001 World Series MVP award
with Curt Schilling — another former Astro. (Other former Astros on
that 2001 D-Backs team included Luis Gonzalez, Steve Finley, and Greg
Swindell.)
At 45 years old, this is probably Johnson’s last
season. It’s rather amazing that he got to 300 wins as he didn’t get
his first major league victory until he was 25 years old. He only had
64 wins before age 30. He was also the first pitcher in MLB history to
strike out 300-plus batters a season for five straight seasons. And
while Randy Johnson was the seventh Giant pitcher to reach the 300
mark, he’s also the fourth former Astro to reach the mark. (Nolan Ryan,
Don Sutton, and Roger Clemens are the others. Alas, no pitcher has ever
gotten his 300th win while actually in an Astros uniform.)
But
I’ll always remember those two-plus months Randy Johnson was the ace of
the Houston Astros pitching staff. Those games were magical and
electric. And in my humble opinion, Astros baseball has never been as
good since.
This article appears in Jun 4-10, 2009.
