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Sunday, October 28
Updated: October 29, 4:13 AM ET
Big Unit reaches new height ... by being himself
By Jayson Stark
ESPN.com
Cue up the printer. Clear some space in your library of trivia. It's time for a Game 2 edition of the "World Series Useless Information Department."
Who's the tallest pitcher ever to start a World Series game? You were looking at him Sunday night. At 6 feet 10 inches, Randy Johnson supplants two deposed 6-foot-7 historians -- John Candelaria ('79 Pirates) and Rich Gale ('80 Royals).
The Unit also is the tallest pitcher ever to throw a pitch in a World Series game in any role. Three 6-foot-8 relievers used to hold that distinction: Jeff Nelson (numerous Yankees teams), Jeff Juden ('97 Indians) and former NBA multi-sport sensation Gene Conley ('57 Braves).
It isn't every World Series game you see a pitcher pile up seven strikeouts through the first three innings. The only other two times it happened before Johnson did it: Game 1, 1968, when Bob Gibson did it on the way to his legendary 17-strikeout game against the Tigers, and Game 1, 1999, when Orlando Hernandez did it to Atlanta on the way to a 10-strikeout game.
What was Randy Velarde doing at first base Sunday, for just the 10th time in his career? His lifetime batting average against Johnson (.452) was
the best of any batter in baseball with at least 20 career at-bats against the Unit (according to the Elias Sports Bureau). In four trips, he went 0-for-3, with a four-pitch walk in the fourth inning that did allow him to become the first Yankee to reach base.
During the regular season, Andy Pettitte saw so few left-handed hitters that left-handers averaged just 5.5 at-bats against him per start -- meaning the opposing lineup rarely contained two men hitting from the left side against him. The Diamondbacks started four left-handed hitters, though -- including the 1-2-3 hitters (Tony Womack, Craig Counsell and Luis Gonzalez). The four of them went a combined 0-for-11 against Pettitte with six strikeouts.
The Yankees' three hits in Game 1 were their fewest in any World Series game since Game 3 of the 1963 World Series, when they got three against Don Drysdale. Other Series games in which the Yankees got three hits or fewer:
--Games 6 (Billy Pierce) and 3 (Jack Sanford) of the 1962 World Series.
--Game 4 (two hits vs. Warren Spahn) of the 1958 World Series.
--Game 2 (Art Nehf) of the 1921 World Series.
Then they only got three hits again in Game 2. The good news is, they avoid the record for fewest hits in Games 1 and 2 of a World Series game (five, by the 1906 White Sox). But the six hits are the fewest by any team in the first two games since 1939, when the Reds got six against the Yankees' Red Ruffing and Monte Pearson.
Four other teams got seven hits in Games 1 and 2 -- the '99 Braves (against the Yankees), the '66 Orioles (against the Dodgers), the '28 Cardinals (against the Yankees) and the 1914 A's (against the Braves).
The last team to score a total of one run in Games 1 and 2: the '96 Yankees -- against the Braves. And you know how that one turned out.
The Yankees went 31 consecutive hitters over two games without a hit -- from the fourth inning of Game 1, when Jorge Posada got the final hit off Curt Schilling, to the fourth inning of Game 2, when Posada got the first hit off Johnson.
The five unearned runs allowed by the Yankees on Saturday were the most any team has given up in a World Series game in almost 30 years, since the previous three-peaters, the A's, allowed five in Game 2 of the '73 Series against the Mets.
The nine runs scored by the Diamondbacks in Game 1 were tied for the second-most ever by a franchise playing its first World Series game. The '82 Brewers scored 10 in their debut. The Diamondbacks tied the 1919 Reds, who were the beneficiaries of even more largesse than the Yankees showed Arizona -- they were playing the Black Sox.
Finally, nobody ever did hit a home run into the fabled swimming pool at the BOB in Games 1 and 2. But just for future reference, in case the Series returns to scenic Arizona, the last time a World Series home run came down in a body of water was Game 4, 1980, when a Willie Mays Aikens homer kerplunked into a fountain in left-center field in Kansas City.
Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com
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