Diamondbacks Give Johnson All the Help That He Needs

Put Randy Johnson on the mound, give him nine runs and the Arizona Diamondbacks become about as unbeatable as a team can get.

Johnson threw a six-hitter in his 29th shutout and Reggie Sanders homered for the seventh time in six games as Arizona beat the Florida Marlins, 9-0, Monday night at Phoenix.

“It makes a starting pitcher’s job a lot easier to go out there and feel like you can afford to make a mistake,” Johnson said. “In a close ballgame, you have no room to make a mistake.”

Johnson (3-2) didn’t make many mistakes, regardless of the score.

He struck out 10 and walked none in his second complete game in a row and his first home victory of the season.

“We got beat by one of the all-time greats tonight,” Florida Manager John Boles said. “It became a situation where you hope to score a run and keep him from 10 strikeouts, but we couldn’t do it. He was spectacular.”

Johnson has double-digit strikeouts in four of his five starts this season and has 152 in his career, second only to Nolan Ryan’s 215.

New Diamondback Manager Bob Brenly had talked about trying to limit Johnson’s innings, especially in one-sided games. But he left the Big Unit in because his pitch count was relatively low, at least by Johnson’s standards.

“I can certainly sympathize with managers who have extended him and others like him in the past,” Brenly said. “But his mechanics were good the whole ballgame. He was locked in on the zone. He was still throwing 98 mph in the ninth inning, so I guess I didn’t really consider it.”

Sanders hit a three-run homer in the Diamondbacks’ six-run fifth inning.

Atlanta 9, Houston 7--Tom Glavine overcame a rare double error by Gold Glove center fielder Andruw Jones to win at Houston.

Down 9-5, the Astros scored twice in the ninth inning off John Rocker. With runners on second and third, Rocker retired pinch-hitter Tony Eusebio on a fly ball to end it.

Glavine (2-1) lost his first eight career decisions at Houston. He’s gone 9-0 in 11 starts at the Astrodome and Enron Field since his last loss on June 25, 1991.

Trailing 5-1, the Astros scored three times in fifth, taking advantage of Andruw Jones’ misplays.

Chris Truby singled and one out later, Julio Lugo singled to center field. Jones bobbled the ball for one error, then chased down the ball and made a throwing error that allowed Lugo to score on the play. Jones made only two errors in all of 2000.

Philadelphia 5, San Diego 3--The Phillies gave Larry Bowa a win in his first game against the team he managed in the late 1980s, with home runs by Travis Lee and Scott Rolen helping at San Diego.

Both homers came off Adam Eaton (2-2), who was Philadelphia’s first-round pick in the June 1996 draft.

Bowa has the Phillies in first place in the NL East in his first managerial job since he was with the Padres.

He managed San Diego from 1987 until he was fired on May 28, 1988, after a 16-30 start.

Philadelphia handed the Padres their seventh loss in eight games.