High & Inside: NL Notes

Randy Johnson tied Roger Clemens last night for second place on baseball's career strikeout list. The 44-year-old Arizona lefthander fanned nine batters in seven innings against the San Francisco Giants to give him 4,672 in 20 major-league seasons. Nolan Ryan holds the record for most career strikeouts with 5,714.

Let's get the scouting report from Lenny Dykstra on the centerfielder for Westlake High School in Westlake Village, Calif. - his son, Cutter.

"He can fly, and he's an offensive weapon," the elder Dykstra told MLB.com. "Cutter's got thunder to all fields, and he's a run-scoring machine. . . . He's going to play in the big leagues, and he's going to help somebody win. He's going to put people in the seats."

Scouts do not think Cutter Dykstra will be a first-round pick in next week's major-league baseball draft, but they believe he could go in the supplemental round or second round. His stats are good - a .473 batting average, a .742 slugging percentage, and an on-base percentage of nearly 60 percent - but there are a few outfielders and shortstops (his former position) ahead of him.

Cutter's OK with that. He just wants to get a shot and show people what he learned from his dad.

"He's made me the player I am," he said. "Words can't even describe. I want to be the same player he is. I want people to leave the field saying, 'He plays the game just like his dad did.' "

Speaking of fathers and sons, it seems like only yesterday that Bret Boone was hanging out in the Phillies' locker room at Veterans Stadium with his dad, Bob, in the late '70s and early '80s.

How time flies. Boone, now 39, has decided to retire after 14 seasons in the majors rather than try to stay in shape waiting for a team to offer him a job.

"I had no idea how hard it is when you get to be a certain age," Boone told ESPN.com. "My whole life, when the older guys would tell me, I would laugh at them, like that would never happen to me. Now I know what 39-year-old middle infielders feel like playing every day. Wow, it's very hard."

Has embattled New York Mets manager Willie Randolph demoted Carlos Delgado to a platoon situation at first base?

The lefthanded-hitting Delgado missed back-to-back games against Florida's lefthanded pitching. When asked about whether he was platooning Delgado, Randolph replied, "No, we're not there . . . not yet, anyway."

Delgado, who was not available for comment Wednesday night, simply has not put up the numbers. Among major-league first basemen with 50 or more at-bats entering last night's game against the Dodgers, Delgado was 30th in hitting (.215), on-base percentage (.294), and slugging percentage (.387) while ranking sixth in strikeouts (41).