When the Braves acquired third baseman Chris Johnson — the human asterisk in the trade that starred Justin Upton — they could not have foreseen he’d be the guy chasing a batting title throughout the season.
But maybe that development was not all that far-fetched.
There was ample evidence that the man had life in his bat. He was a .300 hitter stepping off the bus (.308 to be exact, when breaking in with Houston in 2010). Through three seasons with the Astros and Arizona, Johnson hit a cumulative .275.
As for the one season he didn’t produce to his own high standards — in 2011, he hit just .250 — Johnson had a perfectly sound explanation. And with that explanation, he would paint that season, not this one, as the anomaly.
“It was my second year in the league,” he said. “It took me a little while to adjust. I got off to a slow start; it got in my head a little, I think.
“I think that happens a lot. Guys have some success when they get in the big leagues, then they go through a period where they have to try to figure something out. The league adjusted to me, and I didn’t adjust too well back.”
A player who prides himself on taking no day in the majors for granted tends to keep the memory of his worst season filed in front of the better ones.
“I came in, I hit .300, thought I was on top of the world, thought I made it and the rest was going to be history,” said Johnson, who is 29. “But it didn’t work like that. I’m scared to let it happen again. I like having that fear inside me that, if I get comfortable, I’ll fail. And I don’t want to fail.”
If we all had known a little more about Johnson coming in here, perhaps there wouldn’t be quite the level of surprise around the numbers he has posted. Or about how therapeutic he has been, easing Braves fans through the loss of Chipper Jones.
If only we had realized the stock he came from, then we might have expected all this, if not more.
He is the son of a baseball lifer, Ron Johnson, who has ground out a living coaching or managing 30 years, most of those in the minors. Dad has worked just about all of baseball’s small rooms and dinner playhouses.
While playing at Stetson, Chris Johnson’s coach was Pete Dunn, a dear friend of Chipper Jones’ father. Chipper, Dunn’s godson, paid special attention to the kid he had met at Stetson and encountered again at the major league level.
“When I’d play against Chipper in spring training, he always kept me close, talked to me, watched me a little bit, gave me pointers. It was a big help,” Johnson said.
He also is the half-brother of Bridget Johnson, who just might be the most inspirational figure of the lot.
In the summer of 2010, Bridget, just 10, went out for a horseback ride from the family’s 15-acre Tennessee farm. While crossing a curvy country road, she and the horse were struck by a speeding car. Her left leg was severed in the accident.
Her story gained wider attention because at the time her father was the Boston Red Sox’s first base coach. ESPN did a lengthy piece on Bridget, detailing the drama around saving her life in the moments immediately following the accident as well as her long recovery. Shoot, at that time, who knew who Chris Johnson was?
“She was way more famous than me, for good reason,” he said.
The update from big brother: “She’s moving on, she’s accepted it and she’s doing great. Still rides every single day. It has been awesome.”
Johnson had to deal with a case of turf toe throughout the summer. That can’t seem like much of a physical challenge, considering.
“You have to bring something pretty serious to our table to get much sympathy,” his father noted.
A new town and a new team have had much else to learn about the man who made Juan Francisco expendable while claiming third base all for himself.
For instance, who knew that when the Braves traded away one of their most popular players — Martin Prado — they would get in return another likable presence? “As a teammate, I think he’s right up there with the favorite ones in the clubhouse,” manager Fredi Gonzalez said.
And then there’s the dual personality thing. The quiet, affable fellow in front of his locker starts to smolder the instant his cleats touch grass. Over the course of a season, we have come to learn the new guy is a little salty.
“There’s a glaze that goes over his eyes sometimes. That’s the intensity he plays with. And it usually works,” Gonzalez said.
There are those times when it hasn’t worked. He was ejected in the first inning against the Marlins for arguing a strike call, which inspired him to literally tape his mouth shut the next day to make a point. Johnson and young Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez had a recent spirited debate. There has been an assortment of tossed helmets and epithets after an empty at-bat.
Johnson remembers always being like that. There is a refusal to accept failure that sometimes does not co-exist with a game where failure is the norm.
“Every time I go up to the plate, I want to get a hit. Every time in the field, I want to make a play,” he said.
Coaches and managers through the years have tried to file down that edge just a little. Gonzalez himself has offered some brief counsel.
“We shouldn’t be talking about that subject. We should be talking about what a great hitter he is,” Gonzalez said. “When you put yourself out there like that, people think that’s who you are, even when that’s not really who you are. It’s unfair to him. That’s what I’ve talked to him about. You don’t want that perception, here is a guy who is a hothead, who breaks helmets. This guy is a good player.”
Johnson is trying to strike a balance between necessary intensity and self-immolation.
One of the keys, his father said, is to play as hard as possible but then leave the results at the park afterward. And on that score, his boy is getting better.
“At least now if I text him after he doesn’t get a hit, he’ll answer that same day. That’s not how it was always. It sometimes would take a week,” Ron Johnson said.
The intensity surrounding him is about to double. Coming up with Houston, Johnson had no experience with the postseason. He has been starving for this opportunity. Long before October, he found himself trying to recalibrate his attitude, to prepare himself for the unknowns of fall baseball.
“I think about (the playoffs) all the time,” he said back when it was still mid-September. “What’s it gonna be like? I try to pick some of the guys’ brains about the intensity.
“I try to practice that a little bit, too. Take a situation and say to myself, ‘OK, the game is on the line here, let’s see if you can get a two-out hit.’ I’ve been working on that. I guess we really won’t know how I’ll react until we get there.”
On such a stage, Johnson gets one more chance to surprise anyone who still doesn’t know him.
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