Yankees hope it’s Roger and in

Parity can wait, but George Steinbrenner cannot. Roger Clemens rode to the New York Yankees’ rescue Sunday, thrilling fans of baseball’s most storied franchise but raising the issue of whether the richest club and one of its most decorated players took advantage of a loophole for their mutual benefit.

The pitching-starved Yankees signed Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner, for a prorated share of a $28-million salary this season. Add the Yankees’ luxury-tax bill to a probable four months of salary for Clemens, and the service of a part-time employee figures to cost the team about $25 million -- more than the entire player payroll of one of the Yankees’ division rivals, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

Steinbrenner, 76, the Yankees’ demanding owner, expects Clemens to steer the club to its first World Series championship in seven years. There is little tolerance of parity in Steinbrenner’s world, not when the Angels and Florida Marlins and Chicago White Sox have won in the interim, on half the Yankees’ payroll, or less.

“Make no mistake about it, I’ve come back to do what they only know how to do here with the Yankees, and that’s win a championship,” Clemens said. “Anything else is a failure.”

The deal left a bad taste in the mouth of Angels General Manager Bill Stoneman. Clemens, who will turn 45 in August, let the season start without him, considering all the while whether to sign with the Yankees, Boston Red Sox or his hometown Houston Astros, and when.

“I don’t think that’s good for the integrity of the game,” Stoneman said. “He shouldn’t be able to sit on the sidelines, watch how things are going and decide where to go. No club should be able to benefit from that.

“I’m thinking about 30 clubs, not one. I just don’t think it’s right.”

In the wacky world of the Yankees, where every loss represents a crisis, the atmosphere brightened considerably from the previous week, when the team was in last place and Steinbrenner reportedly was considering whether to fire Manager Joe Torre.

The Yankees’ starting rotation has included such undistinguished names as Chase Wright, Darrell Rasner and Jeff Karstens. When Matt DeSalvo starts today, they will become the first team in major league history to use 10 starters in its first 30 games.

But the Yankees have won five of six games and charged into second place, with an offense that leads the majors in runs. They now can build a rotation around Chien-Ming Wang, Mike Mussina, Andy Pettitte and Clemens.

“I don’t expect him to do a miracle,” closer Mariano Rivera said. “We just expect him to be himself.”

The Yankees quietly wrapped a deal with Clemens on Friday, after the Astros and Red Sox suggested he pitch another three-month season and, accordingly, made lesser bids. On Sunday, during the seventh-inning stretch at Yankee Stadium, public-address announcer Bob Sheppard directed fans to look to the owner’s box.

There stood Clemens, with a smile and a microphone and an announcement to make.

“Well, they came and got me out of Texas,” he told the roaring crowd. “It’s a privilege to be back.”

The Yankees are in another world financially. They spent $46 million in negotiating rights and salary on Japanese pitcher Kei Igawa last winter and now have reduced him to a spare part.

Stoneman’s concern is not about money but about competitive balance. What is to stop other veteran stars, he wonders, from following the lead of Clemens? Play as long as you like each season, and don’t sign with a team before you see it can contend. Barry Bonds could do it next winter, or Curt Schilling, or Clemens again.

Stoneman said he might bring up the possibility of restricting such midseason free-agent signings at the next meeting of general managers, although he hinted that owners such as Steinbrenner might have no interest.

“It’s an issue general managers can discuss and voice opinions on,” Stoneman said, “but it goes beyond general managers.”

Clemens was expected to be ready in three to four weeks, and the Angels could face him at the end of this month, if he completes his minor league tuneups by then, or in the playoffs. The last time they faced him, in his last Cy Young Award season three years ago, Ramon Ortiz beat him.

bill.shaikin@latimes.com