JJ: Jason Johnson Has Found a Home in Balitmore and in the O's Rotation

It's hard to believe, but Jason Johnson rates as a veteran with the Orioles in terms of longevity with the club.

With a rich history of players like Cal Ripken, Brooks Robinson and Jim Palmer spending more than a combined six decades and their entire careers with the Orioles, Johnson seems like a fresh-faced neophyte.

But on the current Baltimore roster, which has undergone more upheavals in the past half dozen years than Mt. Etna, just two players have been with the club longer than Johnson. Now in his fifth season in Baltimore, the tall, gangly right-hander ranks behind only Sidney Ponson and Jeff Conine (by a few days) for consecutive years in an Orioles uniform. The Orioles acquired him from the Tampa Bay Devil Rays on March 29, 1999, in a trade for minor league outfielder Danny Clyburn and cash. The trade has proven to be one of the team's best in recent years. Conine actually joined the organization four days later, but Johnson went straight from spring training to Triple-A Rochester. He was recalled in May of that year and immediately became a member of the rotation for the remainder of the season.

One reason the 29-year-old Johnson doesn't seem as though he's been around so long is that he's a quiet type of guy who keeps to himself and generally avoids the spotlight. Another is that he's never really fit into an easily defined niche while playing for Baltimore. Each new season almost seems like the first one for the California-bred pitcher. His statistics seem to swing up and down from year to year like a yo-yo. He goes 8-7 one year, then 1-10 the next and is banished briefly to the minors. Then he sparkles most of the following year, leading the American League briefly in ERA before tiring in September, only to fall to 5-14 last year. And to continue his intriguing Jekyl-and-Hyde pitching career with the Orioles, he opens 2003 with a 5-2, 3.30 ERA mark through the first two months.

“I'm asked that all the time—it all depends on your run support,” he asserts, trying to explain his up-and-down record. I pitched well last year. It doesn't really matter what your won-and-loss record is.”

It's tough for fans to assess what they think of Johnson. Even the club's brass has had difficulty in deciding whether Johnson is a really good pitcher who simply needs to show more consistency or a mediocre player who never has been able to capitalize fully on his superlative assortment of pitches. He's certainly never reached the status of star or even staff ace during his four-plus years in the Orioles rotation. Yet if there's been one thing Johnson has been consistent about, it's his ability to bounce back into the rotation every time he seems to be nearing that giant scrap heap of pitchers-with-potential-who-never-quite-made-it.

Even though Baltimore might not know quite what to make of the guy, Johnson is resolute in what he thinks about Baltimore.

“Baltimore is my baseball home,” he says. “I love it in Baltimore. And I love playing here. At this point, I don't want to go anywhere else.”

Quietly but assertively, Johnson—along with his wife, Stacey—has embedded himself into the Baltimore landscape.

He is one of the most active Orioles in becoming involved in the community and exhibits a genuine sense of commitment to the team and the city. The pitcher suffers from diabetes, a disease he monitors closely, both on the field and off, and has been especially active as an advocate for both the local and national arms of the American Diabetes Association. He makes numerous appearances on behalf of the association and regularly meets with children who have contracted the disease, which restricts the way the pancreas releases insulin into the rest of the body. The disease stays with a person for his or her lifetime and can be managed through medication that keeps a proper balance of blood glucose levels in the body. Early in his career, which began with the Pirates organization in 1992, Johnson had trouble with the disease, especially on hot days when he was on the mound. More recently he has been able to control it, however. This spring he had a minor diabetic reaction, one that was reported prominently in the press but was downplayed by Johnson himself as weariness more than anything serious.

“If the Diabetes Association has an idea where they think I can help them out, I'll offer my assistance,” he says.

Johnson's wife has become a leader in the Orioles wives organization, offering assistance most recently with the Habitat for Humanity program. Husband and wife served as honorary chairs for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation gala held earlier this year, and Jason was the spokesperson for the foundation's Field of Dreams fundraiser that netted $60,000 for the organization a couple of years ago.

“It helps us feel closer to the community,” he says of his and his wife's charitable work.

Johnson is stoutly proud of his tenure with the Orioles and believes strongly in his own abilities. When he struggled in 2000 and made several trips to the minors, he returned to Baltimore each time, avowing that he had overcome his problems and would be an asset to the team. At the end of each losing streak in his big league career, he also has asserted that his troubles are behind him and that he has resolved whatever problem had plagued him.

“When I'm on, I feel like I can beat anyone,” he says. “If I didn't feel that way, I don't think I'd belong here. Confidence is one of the big keys to success in the major leagues.”

Asked if there are any hitters in the American League who give him a particularly hard time, Johnson says there are none. “I have confidence in whomever I pitch against right now,” he says.

What, then, is it that causes the 6-foot-6 pitcher to break down at times, to go into stretches where he seems to have trouble getting anyone out, where his command of his pitches somehow eludes him?

“Basically, control of my fastball,” he responds. “The fastball is my No. 1 pitch. And if I don't feel I can control it, that's something I really have to battle with.”

The key to retaining command of his fastball, he goes on, is his release point. Johnson believes his height can cause problems with the way he releases the ball. Because he is tall, he sometimes releases the ball at different points in his delivery, and that's where the problems can begin. Walks have sometimes been a problem for him. In his worst year, 2000, when he not only went 1-10 for the Orioles but also had a nose-bleeding ERA of 7.02, he walked more than one batter every two innings. But beyond the walks, when a pitcher like Johnson cannot control his bread-and-butter pitch, he tends to put too many pitches over the meaty part of the plate, where hitters can salivate over them, or turn to lesser pitches in an effort to get batters out.

He credits his success the first two months of 2003 not to an adjustment of his delivery or to honing any of his pitches, but to the same factor he always has when he's pitching well: “I've just gotten more confident with my pitching.”

It hasn't been particularly easy to be an Oriole during the years Johnson has been with the club. Each season the team has finished in fourth place in the American League East. Players obviously like to be with a winner, and Johnson hopes that he one day will be with an Orioles team that can strike up more wins than losses during a year.

“It's frustrating,” he acknowledges of the team's poor record since he's been in Baltimore. ”Everybody really wants to win. I'd really like in the next few years to build up a team here in Baltimore that can compete. But that's another one of those things that I can't really control.”

The rotation that Johnson has been a member of in Baltimore has changed significantly virtually every year he's been in town. The only other constant has been Ponson. The other components have changed perennially, almost as regularly as the four seasons of the year.

He claims that the changes have not really been a problem. “Most of the time you get along with all the guys,” he says. “So no matter who comes in, you gel pretty well. We play as a team. Everybody gets along.”

He talks to other pitchers in the rotation about batters he's faced in a series, if they are due to face the same line-up in a day or two. “If I face a team, and another guy in the rotation will be facing them, he might ask what he ca n do to get a particular guy out. You kind of share secrets.” That helps keep the chemistry in the rotation good, he adds.

Johnson, who likes playing golf with his wife and hopes to travel to Europe with her this offseason, would like to remain a member of the Baltimore rotation, regardless of who else moves in and out of it in coming years.

“I have five years in the big leagues,” he says, “and I feel like a veteran on the team. I hope it can stay that way.”