Clemens Loses One in a Row : After 14-0 Start, Boston Pitcher Stopped, 4-2

The Roger Clemens express was derailed Wednesday night, though hardly in crash-and-burn fashion. More like a momentary loss of control, a minor skid. No dents, just a few dings.

The only casualty as the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Boston Red Sox, 4-2, before a Fenway Park crowd of 27,493 was Clemens’ previously unblemished record and, of course, the well-publicized chance to join Dave McNally (Baltimore, 1969) and Johnny Allen (Cleveland, 1937) as the only pitchers in American League history to start a season 15-0. Rube Marquard of the 1912 New York Giants set the major league mark of 19-0.

“I’ve seen him at his best, and I don’t think this was his best tonight,” said Toronto outfielder Jesse Barfield, who went 0 for 2 with a walk against Clemens. “Any team in baseball would want to beat Roger Clemens so they can say, ‘He didn’t break the record against us.’ ”

Under these circumstances, 14-1 isn’t bad.

The 23-year-old right-hander was rolling along for six innings, allowing only a solo home run by George Bell in the fourth and two other balls out of the infield while striking out seven. Four of those strikeouts came in the first two innings, when, on a 57-degree night with a steady wind blowing toward right field, Clemens needed only 19 pitches to set down the first six Blue Jays.

Damaso Garcia was the only other Blue Jay to reach base through six innings--when charging Bill Buckner played a high chopper off his chest at first base with two outs in the third. The crowd, pumped with the emotion and realizing that Clemens was on his game, waited for a ruling and than cheered when Buckner was given an error.

This time, it was Clemens the fielder who got the Red Sox out of the inning. The next batter, shortstop Tony Fernandez, drilled a pitch up the middle, and Clemens stuck out his glove for the catch.

What more could the fans ask for? Cozy Fenway (capacity: 33,583) had drawn 32,729 for Tom Seaver’s Red Sox debut the night before, the fans chanting “Sea-va, Sea-va” when they realized that the first 300-game winner to take the mound for Boston since Cy Young wasn’t coming out for the eighth inning. Wednesday morning, people lined up in the rain and the wind outside the stadium to buy tickets.

And what more could the low-key Clemens ask for than to be on the mound, where he is most comfortable, and away from the media, with whom he isn’t most comfortable? The interview requests had been coming at a steady pace ever since Clemens set the major league record with 20 strikeouts April 29 against the Seattle Mariners.

“You guys can all go back to your own state now,” he joked in a press conference after Wednesday night’s game.

It was in the seventh inning, when he walked two batters, that Clemens began to lose his place. Although the Blue Jays did not score in the inning--Boston led, 2-1, as the result of Marty Barrett’s two-run homer in the fifth--Clemens’ customarily sharp control, for a pitcher with a mid-90-m.p.h. fastball, began to waiver.

“I felt real strong,” he said. “I kind of opened the door when I gave them six outs by walking the leadoff men (Lloyd Moseby in the seventh and Ernie Whitt, the No. 8 hitter, in the eighth).

“I did exactly what I wanted to do . . . and I was around the plate a lot. I think I made a couple of too-good pitches when I had them 0-2.

“I threw seriously hard for six innings consistently, and that’s the longest I’ve been able to throw the ball that hard.”

The two seventh-inning walks did not result in runs, but they did turn some heads. After the leadoff walk to Whitt in the eighth, Red Sox pitching coach Bill Fischer went to the mound, with Joe Sambito and Bob Stanley warming up in the bullpen.

Clemens then gave up a single to Garcia, putting runners on first and second, but turned a bunt by Fernandez into a force-out at third base. However, the next batter, Rance Mulliniks, hit a pitch on the outside part of the plate for a double to left, scoring Garcia with the tying run.

Clemens left after that to a standing ovation, and his replacement, Stanley, followed soon thereafter--to an entirely different sendoff.

Moseby was walked intentionally, and Bell rolled Stanley’s first pitch to him between third and short for a run-scoring single that broke the tie and sent Moseby to third. Barfield made it 4-2 with a sacrifice fly to center, before Stanley walked designated hitter Cliff Johnson and was taken out to a chorus of boos, all the runs being charged to Clemens. Sambito came in and got Willie Upshaw to foul to Buckner for the third out.

Jimmy Key (7-5), overshadowed despite a fine effort, took the Blue Jays through 7 innings before Tom Henke came in for his 11th save.

So, the game marked the end of Clemens’ streak, the end of Boston’s six-game winning streak and the end of Toronto’s eight-game losing streak at Fenway.

“It’s not fun to see it end,” said Clemens, who gave up only three hits and finished with eight strikeouts, “but I’m going to start over again the next time out.”