One Bad Inning Bites Angels, 4-1

For four innings Friday night, Angel pitcher Brian Cooper went toe to toe, eye to, well, sternum with Arizona Diamondback ace Randy Johnson, not only hanging with the 6-foot-10 left-hander but doing him one zero better, thanks to four shutout innings by Cooper and Troy Glaus’ homer against Johnson in the second.

But any thoughts Cooper had of outdueling Johnson dissolved in a hail of hits in the fifth in which the Diamondbacks scored four runs en route to a 4-1 interleague victory over the Angels before 39,468 in Bank One Ballpark.

Glaus’ 457-foot shot against Johnson, which landed in the second deck in left field and was the third-longest home run in Bank One Ballpark history, was one of only three Angel hits against Johnson, who sat out his last start because of discomfort in his throwing shoulder.

The eight-day rest seemed to do wonders for Johnson, who quickly erased the memory of his last appearance against the Angels--when he gave up 11 runs on 12 hits in three innings of a spring training game on March 15--by striking out the side in the first, blowing fastballs past Kevin Stocker and Mo Vaughn that were clocked at 97 and 98 mph.

Johnson went on to strike out eight, tying Mickey Lolich for 13th on the all-time strikeout list with 2,832, walked only one and improved his record against the Angels to 15-6 with a 2.66 earned-run average. He is 10-1 this season, joining David Wells of the Toronto Blue Jays as the only 10-game winners in the major leagues.

“Somebody asked me who I’d rather face, Pedro Martinez or Randy Johnson,” Vaughn said. “It doesn’t matter. Flip a coin. They’re both going to be that effective. . . . Randy is one of the top two pitchers in the game.”

The Angels mounted only one serious threat against Johnson after Glaus’ homer, putting runners on first and second with no out in the sixth when pinch-hitter Scott Spiezio singled and Darin Erstad reached on second baseman Jay Bell’s error.

But Johnson struck out Stocker looking at a fastball on the inside corner, struck out Vaughn looking at a fastball on the outside corner and got Tim Salmon to line out to second, where Bell made a leaping catch to end the inning.

“What’s different about him now is he’s become more of a pitcher,” Vaughn said of Johnson. “Early in his career with Seattle, he’d try to rear back and throw it by you, and he did. Now, he has a two-seam fastball that moves away from right-handed hitters, he has two different breaking balls, and he still throws 97 [mph]. He’s as much a technician as a power pitcher.”

Cooper wasn’t nearly as overpowering as Johnson, but the right-hander was elusive, getting out of a first-and-third, one-out jam in the first inning by picking off Luis Gonzalez at first base and a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the fourth on a 5-4-3 double play.

But the Diamondbacks combined to hit for the cycle against Cooper in the fifth and scored a run on Vaughn’s throwing error, and the four-run outburst was a big enough cushion for Johnson and relievers Vincente Padilla, Dan Plesac and Byung-Hyun Kim, who each backed up Johnson with a scoreless inning.

Tony Womack started the fifth-inning rally with a one-out triple to right and scored the tying run when Bell bounced an RBI single over Glaus’ head at third. Gonzalez then belted Cooper’s next pitch into the bleachers in left-center, his fourth homer in five games and 15th of the season, to give Arizona a 3-1 lead.

After Matt Williams’ groundout, Steve Finley doubled to right. It appeared Cooper would get out of the inning when Turner Ward grounded to Vaughn’s right at first, but Vaughn’s off-balance throw to first was well out of Cooper’s reach, allowing Finley to score for a 4-1 lead.

“You try to play a clean game all the time, but especially when you’re going against a guy of Randy Johnson’s caliber,” Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said. “You can’t give him any runs, and you have to take advantage of every opportunity you have. Coop battled, but that one inning was tough.”

So was the first inning, when the Angels couldn’t touch Johnson.

“It’s hard to believe he was having shoulder trouble, because he didn’t show any signs of it,” Scioscia said. “He had great command, and none of his pitches got away from him.”