The Futility Infielder

Thanks to the magic of TiVo, I watched a dandy of a ballgame the other night, the pitchers' duel between soon-to-be 42-year-old future Hall of Famer Randy Johnson and 19-year-old rookie Felix Hernandez. Brother, that was one game which lived up to the hype. I'd seen Hernandez, the Mariners' wunderkind, pitch once before, but that was against the Royals, a team that barely fits the definition of major league. Through his first five starts, Hernandez had faced the Tigers, the Royals, the Twins (twice) and the White Sox, who have been scrambling for runs for the past month. In those five starts, he'd gone 35 innings with a 1.75 ERA and a nice 38/5 K/BB ratio. Prior to his third start (against the Royals, having already faced the Tigers and Twins), Baseball Prospectus' Joe Sheehan noted, "The next number in this sequence is an intrasquad game against his Mariners' teammates, followed by a start against the Washington state representative to the Little League World Series regionals."

The Yankees didn't exactly knock King Felix out of the box, but they did wait him out, drawing four walks, two of them in the first inning. They couldn't capitalize on any of them, however. Derek Jeter's walk to lead off the game was immediately erased by a double play. A Jason Giambi walk in the fourth was erased by an inning-ending double play. And Alex Rodriguez's walk to lead off the seventh was followed by a Giambi single, but again, a double play took a bite and then Matt Lawton lined out with A-Rod on third.

Hernandez has a great fastball that can top 97 MPH, and better yet, the ability to control it. His curve is so heavy that it gets referred to as a hammer, and he's dropped many a hammer on hitters thus far, one reason for his incredible 3.52 groundball/flyball ratio. His changeup is supposed to be good as well, but it cost him against the Yankees when Robinson Cano launched one over the rightfield wall for a solo shot. He immediately came back to strike out Jeter looking at a fastball on the outside black. Perfect pitch. Siddown, Cap'n. The only other mistake he made after that was a fastball that stayed over the plate enough for Gary Sheffield to jerk into the bullpen in left-center to put the score at 2-0.

Fortunately for the Yanks, Randy Johnson was even better -- snarling, screaming, practically frothing at the mouth. Johnson, of course, spent a decade pitching for the Mariners, evolving from a 6'10" freak show to one of the game's elite pitchers, and it's no stretch to say that the entire existence of Safeco Field, if not the ballclub's continued presence in Seattle, owes its existence in part to his heroics back in the 1995 postseason. Though Johnson downplayed its significance coming in, the billing of this matchup as the Mariners past versus their future certainly gave him every reason to be fired up. His fastball reached as high as 97, his slider was devastating. The M's hitters could have gone up there with a rubber hose and had just as good results.

Through five innings Johnson had allowed no hits. Even on TiVo delay, that called for preparations: put the computer to sleep to avoid any messages "from the future," check to see that I wasn't going to have to switch brands of beer mid-game, taking note of the position of lightswitches, Yankee paraphelia... you name it. It's goofy to react like that, but why mess with the magic? My hair was standing on end, and I was pacing around the room.

Alas, Johnson yielded a leadoff double in the sixth to Yuniesky Betancourt. Which brings me to another point: the M's lineup had some of the weirdest first names around: Jamal (Strong, their centerfielder), Yuniesky, Yorvit (Torrealba, their catcher), Adrian (Beltre), Raul (Ibanez). In that crowd, a name like "Ichiro" starts to sound normal. Ichiro's grounder sent Betancourt to third, setting up a memorable at-bat in which Johnson fell behind before finally getting Strong to look at strike three. As he went down, Johnson was shouting at the hitter in a manner that seemed like he was promising to defile Strong's grandmother's grave or something. N-A-S-T-Y. But he wasn't out of the inning. He got a couple of quick strikes on Ibanez, who after getting a ball fouled off a couple off pitches, one of which was dropped by Tino Martinez. Grrrrrr. Fortuantely, he grounded out to end the threat.

All told, Johnson K'd seven in seven innings on the night, throwing 116 pitches, 79 of them strikes, and allowing just three hits. Hernandez lasted eight frames, yielding four hits and striking out seven. It was as good a pitchers' duel -- hell, as good a game -- as you're going to see this year, a tight contest finished in 2:33 (and even less on a TiVo). I pity the fool who missed it.