Sick Unit Too Much For Marlins

A sick Randy Johnson still was too much for the Florida Marlins.

Despite a stomach ache, the big left-hander pitched two-hit ball for seven innings Monday night and the Arizona Diamondbacks opened a 13-game homestand with a 2-0 victory over the Marlins.

"He's the best pitcher I've seen this year, by a lot," Marlins manager John Boles said. "He has terrific stuff. He knows how to pitch. He competes."

Johnson (9-2) won his fifth straight decision, striking out eight and walking none.

Manager Buck Showalter decided to replace Johnson after the seventh inning.

"I said I was going to go out there" in the eighth, Johnson said. "Then I started throwing up in front of him. I imagine that must have changed his mind a little bit."

Tony Womack was 2-for-4, including his first homer of the season, and scored twice. Luis Gonzalez also was 2-for-4 with an RBI double.

Three Arizona relievers combined to complete the four-hit shutout. Offense has carried the Diamondbacks to the NL West lead, but strong pitching was responsible for their last two victories.

"Well-pitched games," Showalter said. "Offense picked up our pitching some early on in the season, now it seems like our pitching is picking us up when we're facing some guys on top of their game pitching."

Byung-Hyun Kim retired the first two batters in the eighth, then recently acquired lefty Dan Plesac retired three in a row.

Gregg Olson gave up two singles, but got the final out for his 10th save in 16 chances. He also had a save Sunday.

Johnson allowed only a second-inning single by Kevin Orie and a fourth-inning double by Dave Berg. After Berg's hit, Johnson retired his last 12 batters. Seventeen Marlins were retired in a row before Olson gave up the two singles.

Johnson and 22-year-old Ryan Dempster (3-2) were locked in a scoreless duel through five innings.

Leading off the sixth, Womack fouled off four consecutive pitches from Dempster before hitting empster's 3-2 pitch over the right-field fence.

"I tip my hat to this kid. He had us off balance all night," Womack said. "Spotting his ball, change ups, sliders. He pitched good. He might be mad that he threw me that fastball. For the most part, a guy like that you've got to keep battling. He's coming right at you and you've just got to make sure you're ready."

Womack had 384 at-bats between homers. His previous one came last Aug. 13 when he played for Pittsburgh.

"That's not my thing. My thing is to get on, steal bases and score runs," Womack said. "If you keep your head down through the ball, eventually it will go out. I think a couple of people in the stands were blowing so it went out."

Womack led off the eighth with a single, moved to second on a balk by reliever Braden Looper and scored on Gonzalez's one-out double to left.

"That's a real professional, veteran at bat by Luis, driving in a big tack-on run," Showalter said. "It gave us a margin of error that it looked like we were going to need."

Dempster gave up six hits, walked one and struck out five in 6 1-3 innings. He left the game in the seventh after striking out Damian Miller for the third time.

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