Giants’ Johnson gets 300th career victory
It did not matter that the climactic win came 3,000 miles from home. It did not matter that it came on a rainy weekday afternoon against a last-place team in an empty stadium.
History can still be made in such places. And Randy Johnson was ready for it on Thursday against the Nationals.
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The San Francisco Giants’ 45-year-old lefthander put an exclamation point on his brilliant 22-year career, pitching six solid innings in a 5-1 San Francisco victory to earn his 300th win.
Game 2: Giants 4, Nats 1» San Francisco also won the second game of the doubleheader, 4-1. That contest was halted in the top of the sixth inning as rain showers worsened. After a 1 hour, 7 minute delay, the game was called and the Giants had taken two of the series’ three games. Starter Matt Cain improved to 7-1, allowing just five hits in five innings. Nats starter Ross Detwiler (0-2, 5.23 ERA) gave up 10 hits — six of them during a three-run fifth inning — but didn’t walk a batter. » The Nats dropped to 14-38 with the two losses. San Francisco is now 27-25. » It was the eighth game this season at Nationals Park to be affected by inclement weather. The Nats have had a suspended game against Houston, rain delays against Florida and Atlanta, three postponed games against the Giants, St. Louis and Philadelphia and rain-shortened games vs. Philadelphia and San Francisco.
Only 23 other pitchers in Major League Baseball history have won that many games. It is unlikely anyone will do so again soon. After the final out was recorded — a swing-and-a-miss strikeout by Nats catcher Wil Nieves — there was no great emotional outburst. Johnson simply stood up in the visitor’s dugout and shook hands with his teammates as he has done 299 times before.
“This is kind of a longterm thing that has been going on for years,” Johnson said. “You know that on this one day if the team plays well and you pitch well that something can happen that’s only happened [23] other times. I’m actually more nervous now than I was pitching.”
The small crowd at Nationals Park — an estimated 4,500, though the official total was announced as 16,787 after the second game of the doubleheader — gave Johnson a warm ovation after the final out. A few “Randy” chants even broke out in the bottom of the ninth as reliever Brian Wilson tried to finish the game.
The 6-foot-10 Johnson has spent years terrorizing professional hitters with his over-the-top size, intimidating stare and vicious arsenal of pitches.
But the Nats players didn’t hold it against him. Instead, they joined the postgame handshake line, too, congratulating Johnson on his accomplishment.
It was a day Johnson wasn’t sure would come. He underwent back surgery after the 2006 season and again in July 2007 while sitting on 284 career wins. He returned to make 30 starts for the Arizona Diamondbacks last season and entered 2009 just five wins shy of the magic mark.
“I think that’s probably what I’m most proud of,” said Johnson, a Bay Area native who starred at Livermore High. “It was just a matter of I wanted to get through surgery, be healthy and prove that I could still pitch. That was much more important to me. Because 300 really wasn’t on the horizon before I went through the surgeries.”
Johnson was perfect into the fourth inning and Washington’s lone run was unearned, thanks to a throwing error by Giants shortstop Edgar Renteria in the sixth. Johnson departed after that inning, however, bruising his shoulder while diving for a comebacker — what he called “my senior moment when I thought I was 25.”
The rest was up to San Francisco’s bullpen. It was dicey in the eighth with a bases-loaded jam and Nats slugger Adam Dunn at the plate. Wilson finally escaped with a called strikeout on a 3-2 pitch. The Giants tacked on three runs in the top of the ninth to make Wilson’s job more comfortable in the ninth. After the final out, Johnson barely cracked a smile as his teammates offered hugs and high fives in the dugout. But a big one finally broke through as he jumped onto the field and met his family. Johnson’s son, Tanner, is a Giants bat boy. His wife, three daughters and his sister and brother-in-law were also with him at Nationals Park.
“I think I’m satisfied. But I’ve never been content,” said Johnson, just the fifth pitcher since 1970 to win 300 games. “And that’s probably why I never really got caught up in these kinds of things. I think I’ll reflect more on this accomplishment. But I never really got caught up in the personal things because I always tried to excel and I seemed to do that.”
