An Armful

Randy Johnson of the Seattle Mariners long has been the kind of natural wonder better suited to an Ansel Adams portrait than a baseball card. No pitcher who has climbed a big league mound has stood taller (6'10") or struck out batters more often (10.3 per nine innings) or thrown a baseball much harder (up to 100 mph) than Johnson. Like the peak of 14,410-foot Mount Rainier, which looms on the horizon south of Seattle, Johnson has been defined by his extraordinary measurements.

This season, however, the lefthanded Johnson should be measured less by his unusual stats and more by his rising station in baseball history. He added to his stature in a start on June 24 against the Oakland Athletics by striking out 19 batters; no lefty, and only one righty, Roger Clemens, has ever fanned more hitters in a game.

Even more stunning, Johnson's loss in that game was only his second in his last 33 starts. Therein lies the majesty of the Big Unit: Johnson is the toughest starting pitcher to beat in this century. Forget the tape measures and the K cards and the radar guns; what better assessment of a pitcher is there than that? Never before has Johnson seemed bigger or better. Too often mentioned in the past as a candidate for Guinness or Ripley's, Johnson now evokes more revered names.

"He has become what Sandy Koufax was," Texas Rangers general manager Doug Melvin said after Johnson beat Texas 2-1 on June 19. "Whenever Koufax pitched, you knew if your pitcher gave up more than two runs, the chances that you'd lose were pretty good. Randy's the same way. The funny thing is, we got Randy on a night when he didn't have his best stuff. I felt like we had a chance, and he still held us to four hits and one unearned run in seven innings."

Not even Koufax at his best won games at the clip Johnson has recently. From May 15, 1994, through that start against the Rangers, Johnson's record was 44-6. No starting pitcher in this century has had a better mark for a stretch of 50 decisions. Lefty Grove of the 1930 and '31 Philadelphia Athletics went 46-4 over a 50-game span, but he accumulated eight of his wins while pitching in relief (chart, above).

In Johnson's last 56 starts through Sunday—or since the final game before the 1994-95 strike—he has gone 35-4 (an .897 winning percentage). During that stretch you were more likely to see a no-hitter than see Johnson lose. In his last 71 starts, Johnson has gone 45-7. (Koufax was 44-10 in 68 starts spanning 1963 and '64, the seasons in which he had his best winning percentages.) Since Aug. 14, 1993, Johnson has gone 55-10 in 88 starts. Until the Baltimore Orioles beat him 13-3 on May 8 of this year, he made 30 consecutive appearances, including six in relief while he was hobbled by a back injury, without losing.

"I don't like to lose." Johnson says. "When I lost in Baltimore, it felt strange. I don't want it to sound egotistical; that's not the way I am. But it's just that it had been so long. It was weird. Do you know what I'm trying to say? I have to live up to huge expectations. I'm not supposed to lose. When it happens, it's as if everybody's discovered a chink in my armor. So I've got to hurry back to the welding shop."

At week's end Johnson ranked first in the American League in strikeouts (164), second in wins (11) and second in earned run average (2.18) and was in range to become the first player to win the league's Triple Crown of pitching since Hal Newhouser in 1945. Not once all season had he been removed from a game in the middle of an inning.

Most astounding, only 10 months ago, just after having undergone surgery to repair a herniated disk that limited him to 14 appearances last year, Johnson could not even stand up from his hospital bed to go to the bathroom. When he turned his body to urinate into a plastic bottle, he froze in excruciating pain and he thought not of striking out 19 batters or throwing 99 mph but this: Please, God, just let me be able to pick up my daughter, Samantha, and my son, Tanner, again and be able to play a round of golf in five years.

Of all the tall tales about Johnson, this is the best one yet: the Big Unit's back.