A.L. Division Series - Orioles Closer Jim Johnson Finds Redemption Three distinct and famous baseball celebrities awaited the closer with a common name - Johnson, though friends call him Jim - as he strode to the mound to begin the ninth inning Monday night with a one-run lead. Derek Jeter, Ichiro Suzuki and Alex Rodriguez were due up for the Yankees, all with Hall of Fame futures, assuming voters will one day forgive Rodriguez for his admitted steroid transgressions. Somewhere between the lingering memory of surrendering five ninth-inning runs to the Yankees the previous night and the stomach-churning specter of Robinson Cano as the fourth hitter up was an attractive oasis called redemption for Johnson, along with renewed life in the American League division series for the Orioles. "Yes, I do know who's up and who's on deck, but it doesn't take away from what I'm doing on the mound," Johnson said after saving a 3-2 Baltimore victory that evened the best-of-five series, 1-1, with Game 3 on Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium. I try to execute every single pitch itself, and if I get to that scenario, I'll deal with it at that point in time. But I'm not going to waste energy in thinking about who's on deck. I'm focused on who's at the plate right there and making my pitches. Johnson, 29, was just another bland name on a staff of veritable nobodies before having a pinch-me career season, 51 saves in 54 opportunities as the Orioles" overachieving breakout performer. He recorded only 21 saves in his previous four seasons, but until Sunday night, the Orioles had not lost a game this year in which he had been brought in by Manager Buck Showalter to lock down a victory. His best pitch is a hard, sinking fastball, though Jeter noted that Johnson mixed in an occasional curveball and changeup to keep hitters guessing. "Never throws you anything straight, ball's moving all over the place," he said, in effect summing up the mind-bending emotional challenges of postseason baseball, from one night to the next. Johnson said he had dealt with his huge failure in his first major postseason test - he did hold a four-run Baltimore lead at Texas in the wild-card game last week - by going home Sunday night and trying to forget about it. "Usually about an hour after you get out of the ballpark, you kind of clear it out of your system," he said, while conceding that he had not had much experience this season at forgetting and never at the level of meaningful competition he had faced after Game 1. He came in early Monday afternoon to watch some video to determine if there had been some mechanical flaw he might detect (he said there was but left it at that). He trimmed the lower portion of his light beard and strayed from his normal preparation by going out on the field and playing catch in an effort to exhale. And then he sat in the bullpen while starter Wei-Yin Chen and relievers Darren O'Day and Brian Matusz walked the tightrope in another tense game, hoping for a chance. "You want the ball right away; you don't want to sit on it for a day and then have an off-day," he said. That's the worst part about being a starting pitcher - you've got to eat it for four days before you get a chance to redeem yourself. But in deference to the players the Yankees happened to have coming up and especially the one he left in the on-deck circle, Johnson added, "It would have been nice to have had a bigger lead." However effective he was in conserving energy by not worrying about Cano, everyone else in the ballpark, Showalter included, recognized the importance of keeping Jeter and Suzuki off base. With Jeter's iron will and Suzuki's slap-happy bat and madcap base running, they have formed an odd and intriguing table-setting combination - though Jeter left the bases loaded in the fourth inning and Suzuki did not get the ball out of the infield all night. Still, they helped create both Yankees runs, whereas others continued in the season-long struggle to produce against quality pitching. Cano, meanwhile, didn't even get an opportunity to swing the hottest bat in baseball the past few weeks after grounding out in the fifth inning. In an obvious homage to Cano, and a commentary on the likes of Nick Swisher hitting behind him, Showalter had Matusz intentionally walk Cano as the potential lead run with two outs in the seventh. Swisher completed a hitless night by flying out to left. The Yankees wasted a Mark Teixeira single in the eighth, and that brought in Johnson. Jeter swung over a sinker, bounced out to short. Suzuki rolled out to second. And here came Rodriguez, forever the lightning rod, no more to blame than anyone else for losing this game - though it was just his luck to flail at a full-count sinker away to strike out and end it. Yankees Nation was subsequently left to ask why Rodriguez couldn't have at least fouled off a pitch or two, coaxed a walk, given Cano a shot. The postgame grilling of Yankees Manager Joe Girardi on the prospect of moving Rodriguez down in the order - and Cano up a spot in support of Jeter and Suzuki - was predictable and logical. But sometimes, the bottom line is that the other guy goes out, buries the past and gets the job done. "You have to have a short-term memory in this game," Johnson said. Now the common baseball men otherwise known as the Orioles have to go to hostile New York and forget the last 15 years, when their team was among the sport's biggest losers and the Yankees re-created the haughty notion that they are always supposed to win.