Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
July 02, 2008
Unit Needs to be Replaced

Is Randy Johnson done? Tuesday night's game didn't go well for Arizona as they fell 8-6 to Milwaukee and sent two players to the disabled list. Johnson, however, pitched very poorly. On the positive side, he struck out six in 3 2/3 innings. Everything else was bad. Three walks, three homers and seven earned runs allowed eight of thirteen batters who put the ball in play earned hits.

Johnson acknowledged afterward that he doesn't have the velocity of his younger days, but more disturbing is his lack of location. Few of his pitches are going where he wants them to go.

"If you have velocity, that's a luxury; but if you don't have location, that's a necessity and I haven't had any of that," Johnson said. "I've had a month worth of poor games, and I'm disappointed, that goes without saying. You just have to try to regroup and look forward to your next start."

Manager Bob Melvin said Johnson "left a lot of balls over the middle of the plate. He wasn't able to get the ball inside like he normally does. It was not one of his better games. They hit some sliders, they hit some fastballs. Got on him early. Couldn't stop the bleeding."

Johnson, at seasonal age 44, may simply be too old to pitch successfully in the major leagues. He's undergone back surgery twice in recent years, and as much as he'd like to compete, maybe it's time to walk away from the game. Johnson was once unhittable, and now the league is batting .294 against him despite a high strikeout rate. It seems Randy either fools hitters completely or not at all. He's not a productive player at this point.

The Diamondbacks are once again at .500, and the Dodgers are just 2 1/2 games out of first.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:16 AM | Pitchers | TrackBack (0)
Comments

I don't know David... he has a pretty low Line Drive rate (about 33rd percentile), but he's also got the 5th worst BABIP. Sounds like bad luck to me.

His xFIP on Hardball Times is 4.06, well below his current ERA. Not spectacular, but better than average for sure. I'm keeping him in my fantasy leagues.

Posted by: Mike at July 2, 2008 09:37 AM

His infield balls that go for hits are twice the norm 16.7 %vrs 8.5% or so in his most recent years . Either unlucky or the infield is sucky.

Posted by: Greg at July 2, 2008 11:58 AM
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