Big Unit Wins On Birthday

On his 36th birthday, Randy Johnson looked nothing like an over-the-hill pitcher. King of the hill is more like it.

Johnson threw a six-hitter and set a personal best for strikeouts in a season as the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Philadelphia Phillies 3-1 Friday night.

Johnson (15-9) struck out seven, giving him 335 for the season, the seventh-most in major league history. His previous best was 329 strikeouts set last year with Seattle and Houston.

The 6-foot-10 left-hander needs 49 strikeouts to break the single-season record of 383 set by Nolan Ryan in 1973. That record will be tough to reach with just four starts remaining, and Johnson seems far more interested in helping the Diamondbacks wrap up the NL West title.

"You go back and look at some of the games that I've pitched on my birthday, I don't think I've had too many W's," Johnson said, "so I'll definitely take today's performance. There were a lot of great plays behind me."

Johnson walked two in the first inning and one in the ninth in his major league-leading 11th complete game of the season. He lost his shutout in the ninth when the Phillies loaded the bases with no outs. Manager Buck Showalter left Johnson in the game, and he got Torey Lovullo to ground into a double play. A run scored on the play, then the game ended when Alex Arias grounded out to shortstop.

"You don't make the game too exciting the whole game and then you make it pretty exciting in the ninth inning. That obviously wasn't my wishes, but I'm glathe outcome was the way it was," Johnson said. "The defense made some big plays behind me tonight."

Johnson singled out that double play and an earlier play by first baseman Erubiel Durazo, who snagged Arias' bullet grounder with one hand to end the fourth inning.

Johnson fell three strikeouts short of breaking Sandy Koufax's NL record for double-digit strikeout games in a season. Johnson and Koufax are tied with 21.

"He's just a great pitcher," Lovullo said. "You have to take advantages of his mistakes and we didn't do that."

Johnson said his slow start in the game held down his strikeout total.

"When you don't throw strikes early, it's kind of hard to get them to swing at it in the dirt later on," he said.

Matt Williams led off the fourth inning with a double down the left-field line off Robert Person (8-5), barely sliding in ahead of Kevin Sefcik's throw. Williams moved to third when Steve Finley grounded out to second, then scored on Erubiel Durazo's single to left to make it 1-0.

The Diamondbacks added two more with two outs in the sixth. Finley walked and Durazo singled to put runners on first and third. Hanley Frias lined to right on a 3-2 pitch to drive in Finley, then Durazo scored on Kelly Stinnett's single up the middle to put Arizona ahead 3-0.

The usually light-hitting Frias is 7-for-12 in his last four games.

"When Matt Williams and Jay Bell and Luis Gonzalez aren't doing something, somebody else has to help them," Frias said. "Right now I'm feeling real comfortable."

The Phillies, losers of seven in a row and 14 of 15, mounted a threat in the third when Sefcik and Bobby Abreu singled with two outs to put runners on first and third. But Johnson got Brian Jordan to pop out to third base to end the inning.

Dave Doster led off the fifth with a double, but Person struck out and Doug Glanville and Sefcik rounded out to strand the runner at second.

"We actually had a pretty good approach to Randy tonight," Philadelphia manager Terry Francona said. "He's one of the best in baseball, if not the best. When he had to get an out tonight, he threw some pretty good sliders."

Person allowed three runs on six hits in six innings. He struck out six and walked three.

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