Williamson set to turn up heat

By Dan Shaughnessy, Globe Staff, 8/1/2003

BALTIMORE -- A handful of guys can claim they threw a baseball 100 miles per hour. We don't know about Walter Johnson, Bob Feller or minor league legend Steve Dalkowski, because there were no radar guns in their day. We can be pretty sure Nolan Ryan and J.R. Richard did it, and in recent years Billy Wagner, Matt Anderson, Armando Benitez, Jorge Julio, and Billy Koch joined the club .

Throwing 100 is like winning the NBA's slam-dunk contest. It doesn't necessarily make you a great player (hello, Dee Brown and Spud Webb), but you become something of a sports freak. Ask Fireball Fred Wenz.

New Red Sox reliever Scott Williamson was once a member of the club.

"I did it back in the day," he said last night after meeting his new teammates in the visitors' clubhouse at Camden Yards.

He even reached 101 one night in Phoenix. But that was all before he had Tommy John surgery early in the 2001 season. Now he can only crank it up to 99. Poor guy.

"I hit 98, 99 in LA last year," he said. "But this year I feel more comfortable around the 95, 96 range. I still got it in my arm, but I really work more on the two-seamer a lot more now, sinking the ball and throwing strikes more than just rearing back and throwing it. But I still do it every once in a while . . . I really don't concentrate much on my speed. I concentrate on getting guys out.

". . . You do have to learn how to pitch differently when you come back [from surgery]. When I first got back out there and started tossing, it felt like I didn't even know how to throw. I think it was more mentally frustrating than physically frustrating, but I got over that and had an opportunity to pitch in 2002 and had a great year (3-4, 2.92, 84 strikeouts in 74 innings). I'm a lot more smooth now, smoother than I was before. I throw a lot more strikes. I'm more consistent around the strike zone." He worked one inning in last night's 2-1 loss to the Orioles. Williamson came on in the eighth, surrendered a single and struck out a batter in a scoreless frame. He topped out at 96 miles an hour.He's 27, stands 6 feet, and weighs 185, but he's got the gift. This has been a wild week in his life. His wife, Lisa, gave birth to their first child, Scott Reece Williamson, July 25. She experienced complications and had to return to the hospital. The Sox traded for him Tuesday and he took a few days to get his family in order before reporting to Baltimore last night. He's wearing No. 36. His mound numbers are those of a standard flamethrower. Opponents are hitting .199 lifetime against Williamson and he's averaged 10.6 strikeouts per nine innings. With the Reds this year he was 5-3 with a 3.19 ERA and 53 strikeouts in 42 1/3 innings.

A natural-born closer, he'll be setting up for Byung Hyun Kim in the bullpen. He said he has no problem with the subservient role.

"I'm not that kind of person, anyway . . . My role is to go out there and pitch the best way I possibly can. He [Sox manager Grady Little] is going to use me the way he needs me . . . There's no difference in closing and going out there in the eighth innning. You just have to go out there and do the best you can. The hitters are tough. My job is to go out there and get three outs."

He's got some familiarity with his new team. Williamson knows Todd Walker from Walker's days with the Reds and has worked out in the offseason with Nomar Garciaparra, Kevin Millar, and Trot Nixon. Scott Sauerbeck is his next-door neighbor back home in Cincinnati.

He hasn't pitched in Fenway Park but has a memorable moment from the ancient green theatre. During his Rookie of the Year season in 1999, Williamson was a National League All-Star and that put him on the field, and around the golf cart, when Ted Williams said goodbye to Boston. Williamson didn't get to pitch in the game, but he comes to Boston with a piece of Hub hardball history in his memory bank.

"To have an opportunity to pitch there for the home team is exciting," he said. "This is a great bullpen . . . To have an opportunity to play for Boston and be in that bullpen and have an opportunity to win a World Series is a dream come true. A lot of guys don't have that opportunity and I've been granted that chance to go to the World Series."

There. Another in what seems to be an endless string of feel-good Red Sox stories. Guys once balked at coming to Boston. Now they arrive and talk about going to the World Series.