BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : Change Might Be Good for Johnson

In a game they should phone in, Randy Johnson pitches for the Seattle Mariners today against the Toronto Blue Jays.

The Mariners have won 33 of Johnson’s last 36 regular-season starts, and Johnson, 18-2 as the American League’s Cy Young Award winner last year, is already 3-0 and on his way to a fifth consecutive strikeout title.

He is also continuing his evolution from the erratic left-hander on the verge of quitting in frustration over his inability to master mechanics and fulfill potential.

Evolution? If an intimidating fastball that lights speed guns at more than 95 mph and a wicked slider that registers about 87 isn’t enough, Johnson has begun to feature a changeup and sinking fastball. He has begun to elicit groundouts among the strikeouts and fly outs.

“I’ve been working on a two-seam fastball for some time,” he said of the sinking fastball. “It seemed to make sense as a way to extend my career. I won’t be able to throw the ball past hitters forever. You’ve got to adjust, stay ahead, be ready for when that time comes.

“I said last year that I felt I had become a complete pitcher, and this takes it another step. I mean, it’s fun to go out there and be a little crafty instead of trying to overpower everyone.”

He’ll leave that to his team, which had a club-record eight-game win streak broken Friday night. Their hot start has enabled Seattle to send a message to the Angels and others in the West.

“It feels good to have bounced right back after last year,” Johnson said. “It kind of makes a statement that we’re for real.”

As opposed to simply having taken advantage of the Angels’ collapse last summer while winning the AL West.

“It’s early, but we’ve established some confidence and hopefully it will continue to grow,” Johnson said, adding that the good start has helped erase questions of chemistry and production after the loss of first baseman Tino Martinez to the New York Yankees and third baseman Mike Blowers to the Dodgers. Neither has homered for his new team, but replacements Russ Davis and Paul Sorrento have combined for six homers and 23 runs batted in.

“It wasn’t one guy last year, and it hasn’t been one guy this year,” Johnson said. “That’s important. We’ve done this with Junior [Ken Griffey] struggling [.213 through Friday]. It should be an exciting year.”

Johnson, of course, contributes to the excitement every time he pitches. He said the off-speed pitches will help produce more short-count outs, which should keep him stronger in the late innings.

“And the off-speed stuff will make my fastball look faster,” he said, which is not what hitters want to hear.

This is all something of a mind game for Johnson, who said he will use the off-speed pitches extensively against only “free-swinging teams that go up there looking for the hard stuff, looking to hack.”

He cited Milwaukee, Detroit and Toronto as examples, and said he also wants to be an example for the younger pitchers in the Seattle rotation.

“I want to show them that the key is avoiding long counts, working ahead and changing speeds,” he said. “I want them to feel they can learn from me.”

Perhaps, but Johnson will still throw enough heaters and strike out enough batters (his 12.35 ratio for nine innings last year was highest in history) to prove he is beyond the learning capacity of most.

NAMES AND NUMBERS

--Paul Wagner, who led the National League in losses last year at 5-16, has responded to the tougher handling of Pittsburgh Pirate Manager Jim Leyland and the decision to bury the “well, he’s still very young” excuse by going 3-0, giving up only two earned runs and 15 hits in 23 1/3 innings. Said Leyland: “We’re starting to see what we thought we had all along. I’ve always said he was the kind of pitcher who could get a manager fired if you gave up on him too soon.”

--Ryan Klesko, the Atlanta Braves’ left fielder, acknowledges he has been talking to his bats--and with them. Klesko has a .424 average and eight home runs, one shy of Dale Murphy’s club record for April. What does he tell his bats? “You really wouldn’t want to know,” said Klesko, who produces so much torque that he has already broken five this year. He also has General Manager John Schuerholz thinking he might hit 40 homers. Fifty, maybe? “Anything is possible,” Klesko said.

--Bad pitching? How about no pitching? There are 53 major league pitchers on the disabled list, including the Colorado Rockies’ high-priced duo of Bret Saberhagen ($5.6 million) and Bill Swift ($4.6 million). The Rockies completed their first home stand on Wednesday with a 4-4 record, and it was a page out of 1995. They batted .340 and averaged seven runs, but what is left of the pitching staff was again gasping in the high altitude. Starters gave up 38 earned runs in 41 innings, and the staff earned-run average was 7.75. Said Manager Don Baylor: “After a while, the excuses are gone. You have to start playing better and pitching better. Chicken soup is not the answer.”

--It has taken only half of the season’s first month for some of the Texas Rangers’ spring hopes about Juan Gonzalez’s improved attitude and commitment to evaporate. Gonzalez, built like an NFL tight end at 6 feet 3 and 220 pounds, continues to sit out games for curious reasons: a sore forearm after being hit by a pitch, strained muscle under his armpit. Gonzalez sat out the first 33 games last season because of back problems, sat out 54 overall and in June said his body would not allow him to play the outfield.

Before a weekend series against the Orioles (Gonzalez did drive in six runs Friday night), he had appeared in only 207 of a possible 272 games since the start of the 1993 season, a period that coincides with his signing of a six-year, $45.45-million contract. He had hit 89 homers and led the AL in both 1992 and ‘93, but has hit only 48 homers since. Said Manager Johnny Oates of the latest injuries: “If it’s not one thing, it’s something else. Go figure it. It’s a mystery to me.”

--He has been in and out of the bullpen, back and forth to Florida to get work. Kenny Rogers, who cost the New York Yankees $20 million for four years, finally will make his first start against Minnesota today, basically having been delayed (at owner George Steinbrenner’s insistence?) by the comeback trial of Dwight Gooden, who recently told Rogers, “I feel kind of guilty. I haven’t pitched in two years and you’re the one who’s the odd man out. You were the second-best left-hander in baseball last year, a 17-game winner. Only Randy Johnson was better. It’s not right.”

NAMES AND NUMBERS II

--Even amid the splendid start of the Orioles, it was only a matter of time before Bobby Bonilla expressed dissatisfaction with his designated-hitter assignment, suggesting he would leave the club as a free agent after the 1996 season if he is kept in that role. “The bottom line is, it’s temporary no matter how you look at it,” Bonilla said. Could he learn to like it? “I don’t want to like it,” he said. “Maybe I’m just a National League player. It’s just not baseball. I don’t want to think about hitting 24 hours a day.”

--This was to be the season that a vaunted young rotation lifted the New York Mets back to contending and championship levels, but it isn’t happening. Bill Pulsphier, 22, is out until next spring after elbow surgery. Paul Wilson, 23, has an 11.25 ERA through three starts and continues to try to overthrow and overpower, according to scouts. Jason Isringhausen, 23, who was 9-2 in 14 starts before shoulder problems closed out his 1995 debut, has been battling a sore elbow and is 1-1 with a 4.08 ERA through three starts. The Mets think Wilson, the first player selected in the 1993 draft and dominant in spring training, is the key. Said Manager Dallas Green: “We know he has the ability to get people out. The problem is in his head. It’s something he’s got to work through.”

--There have been no predictions as to how long Kirby Puckett will be out. The Minnesota center fielder had laser surgery in Baltimore on Wednesday to increase the blood flow to his right retina, an attempt to clear his blurred vision and cope with the early stages of glaucoma. However, a Minneapolis-area retinal specialist, Dr. Jon Tierney, told the Star-Tribune that the surgery is “experimental” with no higher than a 25% success rate. “I think he must be having a fair amount of trouble for them to resort to this,” Tierney said. “I’m surprised someone is proposing this, because it’s an uncommon procedure, one that is not generally accepted in the field.”

--Darryl Strawberry, mystified by the lack of interest among major league clubs, has been talking to the St. Paul Saints of the independent Northern League. The Saints recently brought Jack Morris out of retirement.

--Former Angel second baseman Bobby Grich has joined the Long Beach Riptides of the independent Western Baseball League as assistant general manager and part-time instructor under Manager Jeff Burroughs. The Riptides, owned by Heather Locklear, Steve Edwards and Susan Anton, among others, begin their season at Blair Field on May 17.

--Cecil Fielder’s three home runs at Toronto’s SkyDome on Tuesday made him the home run leader there among opposing players with 14. Of course, Fielder was once a part-time player with the Blue Jays, unable to find permanent work behind Fred McGriff and considered a “base clogger” by then General Manager Pat Gillick. As the major league home run leader in the ‘90s, Fielder has proven you don’t clog the bases when you touch them all. Said Toronto Manager Cito Gaston, after Fielder’s three on Tuesday: “I always tell him that if he’s going to hit them, wait until he leaves here. I told him that today, but I guess he couldn’t wait.”

--The A’s finally opened in Oakland on Friday night after playing 14 games on the road, including six in Las Vegas because of ongoing construction at the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum on behalf of the Raiders. The A’s distributed hard hats to fans and took special interest in the outfield fence that now juts in and out, at heights varying from eight feet to 15 and back. Oakland players are already calling it The Jagged Edge, and when asked if he had ever seen a comparable wall, Manager Art Howe said, “Maybe in China.”