Just months ago, Alan Johnson thought Double A would be as high as he would climb in baseball.

Now he’s embarrassing Triple-A batters as the Sky Sox’s best pitcher.

It’s all thanks to a gamble he made on himself.

“It’s a dog-eat-dog profession,” Johnson said. “There’s always someone else coming up behind you. If you don’t do well, odds are you’re not going to get that opportunity again.”

That opportunity never has been something Johnson has taken lightly.

Undrafted out of Mississippi State, Johnson figured his pitching days were over until the Rockies signed him for $1,000.

Those guys usually fill space in lower levels and then drift away. That didn’t happen to Johnson. He put up good numbers in rookie ball, which earned him an invitation back. A 31-12 record over two years, mostly in Class A, landed him in Tulsa last season for his first year at Double A.

It looked like he’d finally found his ceiling. Texas League hitters pounded him, racking up 217 hits in 175 innings. Johnson’s ERA ballooned to 5.23 as he went 4-14.

“I mean, after a year like that, you don’t really expect to move up,” Johnson said. “To be honest, I don’t think the Rockies had any plans for me at that point.”

So he went home to Alabama and told his offseason employers that he wouldn’t be available to landscape and cut grass. It required dipping into his limited savings, but for the first time he wanted to concentrate on nothing but baseball.

It was a financial risk, but he figured it was now or never.

“You spend so much time as a pitcher looking at the rotation of the ball and the way it’s coming out of your hand and your arm angle and you just start over-analyzing everything,” Johnson said. “It all catches up to you. You’re constantly telling yourself that you’re not doing what you ought to be doing and you just start thinking too much.

“I tried to go back to my high school days or college days when I would just go out and throw.”

He checked into spring training not knowing where he’d end up – if anywhere at all.

The way things fell, he ended up in Triple A and in the Sky Sox rotation.

In his first start, he held Reno to two hits in six scoreless innings. He’s been nearly as sharp every time out.

In four starts, he’s 4-0 with a 2.31 ERA. Opponents are hitting only .181 off him.

“It’s pretty crazy that I only won four games last year and I’ve already won that many this year,” Johnson said.

Sky Sox pitching coach Chuck Kniffin said that control has been the key.

“He sits at about 88 or 89 (mph),” Kniffin said. “But in his last start, he started 0-1 to the first 12 batters. If you can get ahead like that, you’re going to do all right.”

TODAY

Sacramento at Sky Sox, 1:05 p.m., 1460 AMNote: Friday’s suspended game will resume in the top of the third inning, followed by a seven-inning game. Sacramento leads 1-0.

David Wismer poses Tuesday, April 7, 2009, on his 2,586 acre Shamrock Ranch northeast of Colorado Springs. Mark Reis, The Gazette Photo by MARK REIS, THE GAZETTE

Mark Reis