Randy Johnson
Randy Johnson
Randall David "Randy" Johnson, nicknamed "The Big Unit", is an American former left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball who played from 1988 to 2009 for six teams, primarily the Seattle Mariners and Arizona Diamondbacks. His 303 career victories rank as the fifth-most by a lefthander in major league history, while his 4,875 strikeouts place him second all-time behind Nolan Ryan and are the most by a lefthander. He holds five of the seven highest single-season strikeout totals by a lefthander...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBaseball Player
Date of Birth10 September 1963
CityWalnut Creek, CA
CountryUnited States of America
You've got to make your pitches, no matter who you're facing. I did not execute my pitches and paid the price.
That's the pitcher that everybody expected and the pitcher that I expected. It's taken me awhile to find my mechanics.
He did something that Joe would say, 'That's Bernie being Bernie,'
If you're worried about what happened last year, I mean I suppose there's certain things you could take from last year that will help you this year. I think you've got to put everything aside from last year. This is a new year.
He saw a lot of things that sometimes you don't see when you're a pitcher out there, and that's mechanics.
At this point, being 41 years old, it's just a few little keys here and there. It's hard to get to know somebody; he doesn't know me, either. It's kind of hard to evaluate his input.
I'm here to win. No doubt, it's been a disappointing year, but I know what I'm capable of doing. I think the game that I pitched today was coming.
I was barely a .500 pitcher before my dad died and I got married and had a baby... my wife and baby brought me down to earth.
I'm increasingly more comfortable this year because everything is where it needs to be right now as opposed to last year. Overall I feel good. I'm excited about where I'm at right now. Hopefully everything will go well and smooth for the team, but that's not always the case.
I'm comfortable with all my pitches. I'm throwing strikes and that's the bottom line. My mechanics are the biggest thing and I feel like I'm able to hit my spots now.
Probably the theory of most people that have played the game is they'll go as long as they can until they have, A, a career-ending injury or, B, too old and they've been doing it long enough and the fire has gone out. I still have a passion for it.
It's been a long and frustrating year. But if that's been the problem, hopefully I'll continue to work hard on it and pitch the way I did today.
I don't need to go out there all the time and throw seven or eight innings. You might like it. I might like it. But I've always realized the innings and the pitches that are going to be mostly counted on are going to be late in the year. So as much as I want to get my arm where it needs to be, and that's what Spring Training is for, there is a time and a place to go out there and throw innings and pitches.
It was probably one of the strangest seasons I've ever had. The statistics say I didn't struggle. But my standards are different than everybody else's. That has been the case for a long time.