The West Is History Johnson Lifts Seattle Into Playoffs

Randy Johnson inspired great fear Monday.

Even among his Seattle Mariners teammates.

“You wouldn’t have believed the look on his face,” Mariners right fielder Jay Buhner said of Johnson’s entrance into the team clubhouse Monday. “He didn’t say a word to anybody. You could see he was mad.”

“All he did,” Mariners third baseman Mike Blowers said, “was give us all a couple dirty looks and get dressed. It was scary.”

When Johnson re-entered the M’s clubhouse several hours later, it was to a shower of champagne and clouds of celebratory cigar smoke as the Mariners doused the Angels 9-1 to win the American League West title.

The win, in front of a frequently standing crowd of 52,356 inside the Kingdome, capped an improbable comeback that rocketed the Mariners all the way from 13 games out of first place 56 days ago and into to a five-game playoff series against the Yankees starting at New York today.

“It’s the biggest game (in which) I needed to rise to the occasion,” Johnson said. “There isn’t a pitcher alive who doesn’t want to win a game like this.”

It’s unlikely, also, there are any other pitchers alive who could have been as dominating as Johnson was Monday, retiring the first 17 batters he faced and allowing a scant three hits while striking out 12 in a complete-game effort.

“I felt strong and loose from the beginning and it’s a good thing because, obviously, (Angels starter Mark) Langston was pitching well, too,” Johnson said. “I knew my job was to keep it close for our guys and somehow, some time, they’d make something happen.”

They didn’t actually have to make much happen, as Johnson’s only blemish was a ninth-inning home run by Angels third baseman Tony Phillips.

“Randy is the most dominating pitcher in the game and he proved it again today,” Mariners manager Lou Piniella said. “This was his game. We’ve ridden his huge shoulders all year long and we did it again.”

The public perception might have been that the Mariners had limped into this one-game playoff to determine the A.L. West champ, seeing as how they had what seemed to be a cushy three-game lead on California only five games ago.

“But we were really confident with Randy on the hill,” Blowers said. “He wanted to make a statement today. With this being the only game in baseball and on national TV, he wanted to put an exclamation point on his season - and man, he sure did.”

Johnson took a perfect game into the sixth inning, although J.T. Snow and Phillips each had hit 400-foot outs to deep center, where Ken Griffey Jr. shagged them both.

“I just ran back to the wall to make the catches,” Griffey said. “If I’d have had to climb the wall to get them, or run through the wall to get them, I would have.”

In the third and fifth innings, Johnson struck out the side, as fans went to their feet and chanted “Randy, Ran-dy” each time he tagged a batter with his second strike.

Angels right fielder Tim Salmon, a triple-strikeout victim of Johnson, said “every time I face him, I think he was better than he’s ever been. Same with this time. That’s not the Randy Johnson people saw a couple years ago when he had control problems. This guys throws almost nothing but strikes.”

And his repertoire has expanded beyond those vapor-trail 99-mph fast balls.

“The fast ball isn’t the thing that kills you,” said Angel Jim Edmonds, who missed so mightily on one Johnson offering that he nearly screwed himself into the batter’s box. “It’s the slider that kills you. And today, he threw two different kinds of sliders, a big slider and a tight slider, and I’ve never seen him do that before.”

In the fifth, the Mariners began to get to Langston, a former Mariner who, ironically, was traded for Johnson in 1989.

A Vince Coleman single to left pushed home catcher Dan Wilson, who had reached on a fielder’s choice, to make it 1-0.

“We wanted to get something on the board, anything, because we knew we didn’t need much with Randy pitching,” said Coleman, one of the late-season acquisitions who helped solidify the Mariners lineup during the stretch run.

The M’s started scoring in big units after that, getting four in the seventh and four more in the eighth.

Luis Sojo’s broken-bat double up the first-base line with the bases loaded broke the game open in the seventh. Sojo ended up clearing the bases and scoring himself as Langston’s relay from right field went wild for an error.

“I’m just happy it got through there,” Sojo said.

Refusing to cruise, the M’s got three straight singles from Buhner, Blowers and Tino Martinez before Dan Wilson’s double pushed the advantage to 9-0.

A double by Angel Rene Gonzales in the eighth worried Piniella enough to go out and visit with Johnson.

“I just wanted to see how he was feeling and he said he felt fine and wanted to finish,” Piniella said. “That’s all I needed to hear, because this was his game from start to finish.”

“That’s why he’s 18-2,” Angels manager Marcel Lachemann said. “We just couldn’t get anything going on him. The numbers speak for themselves. He threw hard and commanded the ball very well.”

Mariners 9, Angels 1

California AB R H BI BB SO Avg. Phillips 3b 4 1 1 1 0 1 .261 DiSarcina ss 3 0 0 0 0 0 .307 c-Owen ph 1 0 0 0 0 0 .229 Edmonds cf 3 0 0 0 0 2 .290 d-EPerez ph 1 0 0 0 0 0 .169 Salmon rf 4 0 0 0 0 4 .330 CDavis dh 2 0 0 0 1 1 .318 Snow 1b 3 0 0 0 0 1 .289 GAnderson lf 2 0 0 0 0 1 .321 a-Gllghr ph-lf 1 0 0 0 0 0 .188 Allanson c 2 0 0 0 0 1 .171 b-RGnzls ph 1 0 1 0 0 0 .333 Fabregas c 0 0 0 0 0 0 .247 Hudler 2b 3 0 1 0 0 1 .265 Totals 30 1 3 1 1 12 Seattle AB R H BI BB SO Avg. Coleman lf 5 0 2 1 0 1 .288 Sojo ss 3 1 2 3 0 0 .289 Griffey Jr cf 3 0 0 0 1 1 .258 EMartinz dh 3 1 2 0 1 1 .356 Buhner rf 4 1 1 0 0 1 .262 Blowers 3b 3 2 2 0 1 0 .257 TMartinz 1b 2 2 1 1 1 0 .293 DWilson c 3 1 1 2 0 0 .278 Cora 2b 2 1 1 1 0 0 .297 Totals 28 9 12 8 4 4

California 000 000 001 - 1 3 1

Seattle 000 010 44x - 9 12 0

a-lined out for G.Anderson in the 8th. b-doubled for Allanson in the 8th. c-flied out for DiSarcina in the 9th. d-grounded out for Edmonds in the 9th. E-Langston (3). LOBCal 3, Sea 4. 2B-RGonzales (1), Sojo (18), DWilson (22). HR-Phillips (27) off RJohnson. RBIsPhillips (61), Coleman (29), Sojo 3 (39), TMartinez (111), DWilson 2 (51), Cora (39). SB-Hudler (13). CS-Coleman (16). S-Sojo, TMartinez, DWilson. SFCora. GIDPSojo, Blowers, DWilson. Runners left in scoring position-Cal 3 (Phillips, Hudler 2); Sea 2 (Sojo, Buhner). DP- Cal 4 (Phillips, Hudler and Snow), (DiSarcina, Hudler and Snow), (Phillips, Hudler and Snow), (Gallagher, Phillips and Hudler).

California IP H R ER BB SO NP ERA Lngstn L,15-7 6 8 5 4 3 2 107 4.63 BPatterson 0 0 0 0 1 5 3.04 James 0 2 3 3 1 0 13 3.88 Holzemer 0 1 1 1 0 0 3 5.40 Habyan 1 1 0 0 0 1 12 4.13 Seattle IP H R ER BB SO NP ERA RJhnsn W,18-2 9 3 1 1 1 12 126 2.48 James pitched to 3 batters in the 8th, Holzemer pitched to 1 batter in the 8th. Inherited runners-scored-Holzemer 3-1, Habyan 3-3. HBPby Langston (Cora). T-2:50. A-52,356.

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