ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- As Carl Crawford raced toward home plate, with Jorge Cantu at bat and Jason Johnson coming out of his windup, a most alarming thought entered his mind: ``Cantu, he's aggressive at the plate. I better get in there quick before something bad happens."
Crawford, so quick, nearly beat Johnson's pitch to the plate. In fact, he covered the requisite 90 feet so rapidly that he nearly ran into another alarming possibility that his teammates later made him aware of.
``They told me," Crawford said, beaming, ``I almost got hit by the pitch."
Crawford's outright steal of home, a feat last accomplished against the Red Sox by Omar Vizquel in 2000, was the last indignity endured by Johnson. The stolen base, which allowed Crawford to steal for the cycle (he swiped third in the second inning and second and home in the fourth), accounted for Tampa Bay's fifth run in a 5-2 Sox loss before the smallest crowd the team has played before this season (15,001).
In 14 starts with the Indians, Johnson was 3-8 with a 5.96 ERA and was hit at an unsettling .371 clip. In two starts with the Sox (June 30 at Florida and last night) he's lasted four innings each time out . His total line: 8 IP, 13 H, 10 R, 9 ER, 6 BBs, 5 Ks. That's an 0-2 record and a 10.13 ERA.
Johnson was roughed up early. He allowed 11 base runners and needed 70 pitches to get through three innings, after which the Sox trailed, 4-1, though it easily could have more, for the Devil Rays left six men on base in that span and left the bases loaded in the third.
``I don't know," Johnson said, when asked the source of his struggles. ``I'm going to have to get through it. There's no other way around it. I've given up runs early my last two starts. It's tough to come back on that. It's something I'm going to have to cure myself of, somehow, some way."
The Sox did little to help him, managing just four hits off converted reliever Tim Corcoran (6 2/3 IP, 4 H, 2 ER) and three relievers. Corcoran worked out of the stretch the whole night and did so effectively, limiting the Sox to Jason Varitek's solo homer in the second (No. 9 of the season) and Kevin Youkilis's fifth-inning sacrifice fly.
In fact, it was rather ironic that not a single member of the Tampa Bay pitching staff threw a pitch out of the windup, while Johnson, with Crawford on third in the fourth inning, elected to pitch out of the windup, despite Crawford's wicked speed.
Crawford said he'd never stolen home at any level (``Too afraid of getting hit by the bat," he said). But Tuesday he noticed Curt Schilling pitching out of the windup while he was on third, and he began counting off his steps, plotting a steal of home.
