Johnson Enjoys Finest Start of Season as Yanks Nip Sox
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Randy Johnson glared at Johnny Damon, sending an early message. The Big Unit muttered when plate umpire Derryl Cousins didn’t give him calls and tapped his glove on his chest after strikeouts.
Pumping fastballs at up to 99 mph and sliders that darted down, he put together his best performance of the season, and did it against the Red Sox with the Yankees desperately needing a win to stay in contention in the AL East.
Johnson gave up one hit in stifling Boston over seven innings. Jason Giambi homered off Tim Wakefield in the first on a curveball that just stayed fair, and Tom Gordon and Mariano Rivera staved off the Red Sox in a 1-0 victory yesterday.
“That’s the pitcher that everybody expected, and that’s the pitcher that I’d expected,” said Johnson, who improved to 4-0 against the Red Sox this season.
After the teams traded sloppy wins – 8-4 by New York on Friday and 9-2 by Boston on Saturday – they played nine crisp and tense innings. Wakefield pitched a three-hitter, and the Yankees allowed just three hits.
Seeking their eighth straight AL East title, the Yankees moved within three games of the first place Red Sox with three weeks left. The Yankees began the day 1 1/2 games behind Cleveland in the wild-card race.
Pitching one day after his 42nd birthday and on the fourth anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks, Johnson (14-8) struck out eight and walked two.
Boston’s only hit off the 6-foot-10 left-hander was by Kevin Youkilis, who led off the fourth by lofting a 1-2 pitch into short left-center.
The Big Unit regularly hit 96-97 mph, according to the center-field scoreboard, which registered a 99 mph pitch to Damon in the third. He got Manny Ramirez to fly to center on a 98 mph fastball in the seventh, throwing so hard that he developed a cramp in his left calf. He ended the inning by striking out Kevin Millar with his 100th pitch.
“The stuff’s there, obviously,” Johnson said. “It’s been there all year. It’s been in hibernation.”
“This game, above any other game, I don’t think he has to answer any more questions about handling this situation ever again,”Joe Torre said of Johnson. “I thought today was very significant for him.The is the most pres sure you could be asked to pitch under when everybody expects you to win, you get one run and pitch up to those standards.”
Mariano Rivera gloved Edgar Renteria’s liner leading off the ninth inning, but walked Ramirez on a 3-2 pitch with two outs and allowed a single to Kevin Millar that put runners on the corners.
John Olerud, part of the Yankees team that wasted a 3-0 lead to Boston in last year’s ALCS, pinch hit and struck out, giving Rivera his 37th save in 41 chances.
Wakefield (15-11) struck out a career-high 12 in the knuckleballer’s third complete game this season. Giambi had been hitless in 18 straight at-bats against Wakefield before he fouled off a pair of 1-2 pitches and followed with his 29th homer, his second in two days.
“I just saw it pop out of his hand, and I said I can put this one in play,” Giambi said.
“I couldn’t believe he hit it,” Wakefield said. “It was a pretty good pitch.”
“Today it did everything. It went up, it went down, it went left it went right,” Rodriguez said of Wakefield’s knuckler. “He had us talking to each other.”