Randy Johnson 2006 Situation Avg. OBP SLG Bases empty .214 .296 .282 With runners on .320 .349 .573

• Trouble out of the stretch. Many years ago Johnson simplified his windup by keeping his hands close to his chest during his step-back and turn. It improved his balance over the rubber. But for some reason Johnson gets much more out of whack without those movements when he pitches out of the stretch. Check out his numbers with and without runners on base this year (see chart, above).

• Declining strikeout rate. Nothing says "decline" quite like losing the ability to strike batters out. Here are Johnson's rates of strikeouts per nine innings since 2004: 10.62, 8.42, 6.15. The last two rates are career lows.

Oddly enough, the soft-tossing Glavine (7.59) is a better strikeout pitcher this season than Johnson.

• Key hits. Strikeout pitchers should have a huge advantage over finesse pitchers when they get into jams. They can get out of them by not allowing the ball to be put into play as often. That means fewer fluke hits, errors or outs that can advance or even score runners. But without his knockout slider, Johnson is more than ever at the mercy of balls put into play.

As bad as Johnson is with runners on, he is worse when they are in scoring position (.389/.405/.694) and worse yet with runners in scoring position and two outs (.476/.542/.762). Basically, the more Johnson needs an out, the less capable he is of getting it.

• The American League. The transition from the NL, in which a starting pitcher basically gets every second or third inning off because of the weak lower third of the order, to the AL is a very difficult one. It is typically worth more than half a run on a pitcher's ERA. It's even more difficult when you do it past age 40. Johnson is throwing 4.36 pitches per batter, a career high. He has to work harder than ever to get through an inning, which means he does not hold his stuff as well or work as deeply into games.

Is Johnson done? Not by any means. He is healthy and still an effective pitcher. His stuff and will are still sharp enough that he will throw a gem every now and then, one of those eight-inning, 10-strikeout games with one run allowed. But the Yankees had better come to realize that those games -- the very reason they traded for the man and made him a $15 million-a-year pitcher at such an advanced age -- will come far less frequently than they did when he was with Arizona. To be at his best, Johnson has to work harder than ever at keeping his mechanics together, and he must learn, as Glavine, Curt Schilling and Pedro Martinez have done, to adapt to the diminution of velocity.

Cubs hit a new low

Dusty Baker is not going to get fired anytime soon. The Cubs may still extend his contract near the end of this season or soon after, though if Baker is tired of the criticism and angst in Cubs Nation he may be just as happy to pick up and move on to a place like Seattle, a franchise and area that have long appealed to him. But it makes no sense to fire a proven, veteran manager while two of his starting pitchers (Mark Prior and Kerry Wood) have not thrown a pitch for him this year and his franchise player (Derrek Lee) has missed virtually the whole season as well. Baker deserves at least a run through this summer with those players available to him before Cubs GM Jim Hendry even thinks seriously of jettisoning Baker.

Meanwhile, the plan to add Juan Pierre and Jacque Jones to the lineup has played out just about as poorly as everyone except Hendry figured it would. Now, consider that the Cubs have built an identity on fielding losing teams. And now consider the 2-14 stretch this team took into play Tuesday night, a slump in which it scored 32 runs. This is amazing: No Cubs team has ever won so few games while scoring so few runs in any 16-game stretch in franchise history.