AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES : California vs. Boston : Clemens Insists Angels Deserved Their Victory

Was the weather too cold, the layoff too long, the strike zone too small, the soreness in his elbow too intense?

No excuses from Roger Clemens. No peasant, the Lord of the Ks.

If anything, he said, it was the Angels who were too much.

Certainly Mike Witt, his pitching adversary.

“I threw well,” Clemens said, “but they tended to hit them where we weren’t. I tip my cap to them.

“With a Mike Witt out there you’ve got to keep them close and I didn’t.”

This was Tuesday night after Witt and the Angels had triumphed over Clemens and the Boston Red Sox, 8-1, in the opener of the American League playoffs.

Clemens stood at his locker, having allowed 10 hits and 7 earned runs in 7 innings. He had made 143 pitches, 45 in the second inning when the Angels took a 4-0 lead.

The box score is unlike any that included Clemens’ name during a season in which he won his first 14 starts and his last seven en route to a 24-4 record and certain accreditation as the Cy Young Award winner.

Consider:

--The hit and earned run totals were more than Clemens had permitted in any of 33 regular-season starts.

--The four runs of the second equaled his one-inning high.

There was also this:

Having averaged just two walks per start, Clemens matched that total in the second inning alone.

He struck out Rob Wilfong and Dick Schofield consecutively only to then issue consecutive walks to Bob Boone and Gary Pettis.

Ruppert Jones followed with an RBI single, Wally Joyner an RBI double and Brian Downing a two-run single.

Clemens ultimately walked five, struck out five and was asked later if home plate umpire Larry Barnett might have been squeezing him some in that second inning.

At one point or another, Clemens had two strikes on all eight hitters and seemed visibly upset not to get a third strike call on Pettis and Joyner.

“Squeezed,” he said. “I have no comment on that. I’ve got to pitch again in the series.

“All I’ll say is that I thought I made some good pitches.”

Said Red Sox catcher Rich Gedman, on the same subject:

“Roger made some good pitches that might have been borderline, but the umpire was doing the best he could. I’m not going to sit here and get on him.

“If a pitcher isn’t consistently in the zone he normally is, he may not get the calls he normally does. Roger wasn’t in his zone, and it was tough for the umpire to know where the ball was going to be.”

Gedman said Clemens had excellent velocity but may have been overthrowing early, a victim of his own adrenaline. “Usually,” Gedman said, “he’s very good at controlling himself, but he struggled with that tonight. It usually happens when he’s not throwing strikes.

“He wasn’t that far off, but it was enough to throw him off-kilter. His velocity was fine, but he wasn’t making the pitches he wanted to make. He had good movement, but no jump (on his fastball). He was opening his shoulder up and not getting his arm through. He was leaving the ball in the middle of the plate. Roger is never in the middle of the plate.”

Clemens had been 3-0 against the Angels. There was a theory Tuesday night that California was laying off the high fastball, making Clemens bring it down. He dismissed that, too.

“I had a good fastball that was running away and doing what I wanted it to do,” he said. “I had great stuff in the bullpen and wasn’t that far off once it started, though I was jumping at Rich some, overthrowing a little.

“My arm was strong, the velocity was there. I don’t feel I was that far off. I got some pitches out over the plate and they went with them. They did some good hitting. Give them credit.

“I had the chance to put them away in that one inning and didn’t. That’s frustrating. You can’t walk people, particularly with two outs. I thought I made some good pitches.”

Clemens said there was lingering soreness in the area of his right elbow, where he was hit by John Stefero’s line drive last Wednesday, but that it wasn’t a factor.

He also dismissed the six-day layoff and the fact that he had pitched only 1 innings in the last 10 days.

“If I knew I was going to have that same stuff every time I had six days off,” he said, “I’d take it. I pitched big games all year for us and did the job, but tonight I didn’t.

“I’m disappointed, but it’s one game. Tomorrow is a new day and I’ll be out here cheering and preparing for my next start, whenever that is. I mean, no one has said when it will be, but I’ll be prepared to pitch whenever I’m called on.”

If the Red Sox are down 1-2 or 0-2, it is suspected that Clemens will be brought back on three days rest in Game 4.

Asked if Clemens’ 145 pitches would have any effect on his future plans, Red Sox Manager John McNamara shook his head.

Had he ever seen Clemens struggle like he did in this one?

“It can be normal for him like it is for all good pitchers,” McNamara said. “He can struggle early and then find a groove, as he did tonight.

“Witt simply pitched a great game against us. The night belongs to Mike Witt. A five-run deficit (which it was after the third inning) is not very much in this park. We can come back from that, but we didn’t tonight. Witt wouldn’t let us.”

Now the Red Sox must come back from the mental burden of having their ace trumped.

Said Gedman:

“You want to win with your best guy out there, but I don’t like the idea of people thinking we’re through after only one game. We’re not through. We can get even tomorrow.”

Added Wade Boggs:

“You send a guy out there who is 24-4 and you don’t expect the other team to score eight runs. But we can bounce back. We’ve done it all year and can do it again.”