Johnson Overpowers Texas Mariners Ace Fans 15 Rangers To Continue His Mastery Of Seattle’s Division Rival

With the bullpen under fire and their fans screaming for a trade - or a lynching - the Seattle Mariners began the night Wednesday just two games behind the Texas Rangers in the American League West.

What they needed was a dash of confidence, and what the Mariners got when they sent Randy Johnson to the mound was a 5-0 victory that cut the Rangers’ lead in half.

It was Johnson’s seventh victory of the season, but his first that could be viewed as a statement.

The “Big Unit” is sound again. Which means at least every fifth day, so are the Seattle Mariners.

“This was Randy’s night,” manager Lou Piniella said. “We were short in the bullpen and after the game last night in Minnesota, I told him ‘We need nine innings.’ Well, we got eight.”

Johnson didn’t just beat the Rangers, he overwhelmed them with an eight-inning, 15-strikeout performance that seemed to have been lifted from the past.

“Fifteen strikeouts?” asked Ken Griffey Jr. “Nah, when he gets 16-17-18, then he’ll be back.”

Blink and it was 1995 again, with Johnson on the mound and it-doesn’t-really-matter-who at the plate. The fastball was overpowering, reaching 99 mph more than a half dozen times. The slider almost unhittable. Big game? Big Unit.

Coming off as demoralizing a loss as the Mariners had endured all season - a last-pitch defeat in which the bullpen had given up six ninth-inning runs Johnson went after the Rangers from his first pitch.

Two strikeouts in the first inning, two more in the second, all three batters he faced in the third inning. He dispatched them so quickly that by the end of the third inning, Seattle had a 2-0 lead and only two of the nine Rangers who’d batted had managed to put a bat on a ball.

When Texas starter Darren Oliver lost the strike zone in the second inning, the Mariners got two runs without benefit of a hit. Oliver walked three consecutive hitters, then gave up RBI ground balls to Mike Blowers and Russ Davis.

Oliver gave up another run in the seventh inning, setting it up again with two walks before reliever Matt Whiteside gave up an RBI single to pinch-hitter Paul Sorrento.

In the eighth inning, bone-weary, Johnson struck out Domingo Cedeno for the third time - and with that 15th strikeout set the major league high for the season. As the Big Unit’s pitch count rose, Piniella had Bobby Ayala warming in the bullpen.

“I got a kick out of the fans screaming,” Piniella said. “Like I wanted to take him out! Randy was at his pitch count, and we don’t need him for one game, we need him all year.”

He finished the inning, using his 132nd pitch to get a fly ball from Damon Buford.

The question of whether Johnson would try to finish the game was answered in the bottom of the eighth inning. A single by Ken Griffey Jr. and back-to-back RBI doubles by Edgar Martinez and Alex Rodriguez gave Seattle a 5-0 lead.

Ayala worked a 1-2-3 ninth inning, and the Mariners had won a big game at home.

“I’m tired,” Johnson said. “That’s only the second time this year I’ve thrown 130 pitches. The game went pretty quick and the strikeouts accumulated and I was working fast.”