The Big Unit Climbs Over Clemens

Facing the second batter in last night's game against the Giants, Randy Johnson tied Roger Clemens at #2 on the all-time strikeouts list. With the third batter, he gained sole possession of the second spot, a place he should hold for a very, very long time.

Nobody on the active pitcher's list is within shouting distance of Randy's 4680 (and counting): Pedro is 1600 away, and it would take the thirty-five-year-old more than seven seasons to reach Randy, and that's at his career average of 248 Ks, a number he hasn't reached since 2000. Johan Santana, one of the best strikeout pitchers around, would take twelve years at his current 219-K average season to touch Randy, meaning he'd have to pitch until he's almost Randy's age, without injury or career decline. 

Beyond these guys, it's inconceivable that anyone would touch Randy, not in an age when starters go six or seven innings and then bow to the setup-man-and-closer combination managers so often employ. We haven't seen a 300-strikeout season by anyone not named Randy Johson since Curt Schilling did so in 1999, with precisely 300 strikeouts. Nobody other than Nolan Ryan, Schilling, Pedro and Randy have done it in the past twenty years, and nobody's done it more often in that time than Randy.

The Big Unit has six 300-plus strikeout seasons, his best an ungodly 372 at age 37, in only 249-2/3 IP. Nolan Ryan's best year, 383 at the age of 26, took him 326 innings. That number barely edged out Sandy Koufax's 382 (the only other pitcher in the modern era to eclipse Johnson in this category), and that took the dazzlingly untouchable lefty 335-2/3 innings, and at the age of 29, in the season before he retired. These are the only two players to throw more Ks in a season than Randy, and they did it early in their careers, not the tail end.

That's not just remarkable, not just incredible, it's nearly impossible to wrap your mind around. To set such a mark for any pitcher should give one pause, but to do so at 37, when the rest of us are beginning to find the aches and pains we will live with the rest of our lives, is stupefying, is baffling, is utterly inexplicable. One might take a cue from Roger and point to the possibility of PEDs, but Randy's maintained his whippet-like frame throughout his career, though only the Mitchell commission's upcoming release of the players who tested positive in 2003 will tell us for sure.

Realistically, the reason for his success is simple. When you take a guy who stands 6'10" and figure that when he plants that front foot, he's releasing the ball in the neighborhood of fifty-five feet from the plate, his whiplike arm coming at lefties sidearm, you can understand how he got those baffling numbers, as well as why future HOFer Larry Walker once batted righty against Randy in the 1997 All-Star game after Randy buzzed a strike above his head.

Randy wasn't afraid to pitch inside, to use that speed and arm angle to remind lefties that the inside of the plate--and several inches beyond--most definitely belonged to him. For his career, lefties have batted a pathetic .194, though they shouldn't feel too bad, as righties have only managed a meager .222. For you fellow saber freaks, that split is .299/.356 against righties and .276/.285 against lefties. No matter which side of the plate you stand on, Randy makes you look like a pitcher trying vainly to take his cuts. 

Appropriately, Randy holds the all-time record for strikeouts per nine innings, mowing batters down at a clip of 10.7 per nine, meaning that when he toed the rubber, you could count on double-digit strikeouts, a feat accomplished only by Pedro and Kerry Wood, neither of whom has done it for as long as Randy. This is a bit like Oscar Robertson's averaging a double-double through an entire season, except that The Big Unit's done it through his entire 20-year career. From 1995 through 2001, his K/9 average was in the 12s and 13s. Astonishing.

Another impressive aspect of Randy's long career was how he overcame his early wildness, something that contributed to his Fear Factor. He's ranked third all-time in hit batsmen with 185, trailing only Big Train and Eddie Plank and eclipsing fellow intimidators Clemens and Ryan by around twenty-five. But he walked a lot of guys, too, 316 between 1990 and 1992. Then he found the plate, much to the relief of his pitching coaches and opposing lefties, passing only 99 men in 1993, and never walking more than 86 in a season again. Here, too, he comes out better than Ryan or Clemens in career stats, walking half as many as the Ryan Express and 150 fewer than Roger.

All of these factors combine for overall numbers that similarly stagger the mind: a career average 3.23 ERA and 1.15 WHIP, with a season high of 2.20 ERA and .900 WHIP, and a win-loss record of 288-152. That puts him only 12 wins from the hallowed plateau of 300, like he needs such a mark to assure him a spot in the Hall of Fame.

Whenever Randy decides to hang up his glove, whether it's when he reaches that mark or when Father Time finally catches up with him, he's going into the Hall of Fame, and any baseball writer who doesn't vote for him on the first ballot should have his credentials revoked. The Big Unit will go down in history as the most dominating lefty ever, and the most overpowering strikeout artist since Big Train toed the slab. Even Nolan Ryan, long the mark of dominance in the strikeout category, and Roger Clemens, his legacy now besmirched by allegations of a tainted physique and character, will have to tip their hats to Randy Johnson. 

The rest of us, in this era of marvelous hitters and home run records, must realize that we are watching one of the best moundsmen ever. The fact that he is accomplishing this at a time when so many great hitters are in the game makes his accomplishments all the more overwhelming. He did it for three different teams, in two different leagues, in three of the better hitter's parks around.

So the next time you see the lanky lefty on the hill, stop what you're doing and watch him, so that you can one day tell your kids and grandkids that you saw one of the best pitchers ever.