Torre Gets Clemens Off Hook at Shea

Next Sunday would have been the Rocket’s normal launch date, but his Shea Stadium mission has already been scuttled.

New York Yankee Manager Joe Torre, concerned about the potential hype surrounding a Roger Clemens rematch with Mike Piazza and the New York Mets in the finale of their interleague series, has decided to juggle his rotation, sidelining Clemens.

Just as well, perhaps.

In the midst of a disappointing season, the Mets have more to think about than dodging Clemens’ heat, those inside pitches that just seem to get away.

A facetious Torre said he hated to deprive ESPN of the ability to promote “Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier, this match that cannot be missed,” but “I saw an example in the World Series of what can be built up and it was a little frightening to me. I don’t see any need to have that happen again. I know he’d take the ball if I asked, but the manager is still the boss here, at least they’re still leading me to believe that.”

Piazza was beaned by Clemens in an interleague game in midseason of last year, an incident that was shown repeatedly before Clemens started Game 2 of the World Series against the Mets. Then Clemens promptly fueled the tabloid fires by hurling the barrel of a broken bat in Piazza’s direction after Piazza had fouled off a pitch in the first inning. Clemens insisted he wasn’t aiming at Piazza, but he was fined $50,000.

Although the Mets were not surprised by Torre’s decision to withhold Clemens, coach John Stearns, one of the loudest Clemens critics last year, suggested that if Clemens were really the intimidator and competitor he “tends to think he is, he would have insisted on pitching at Shea.”

Said Clemens, “I’ll pitch whenever they tell me to pitch. With [Orlando Hernandez on the disabled list,] I’ll pitch every other day if they want to give me the ball. I couldn’t care less who I pitch against.”

Torre is playing something of a nursemaid to his depleted rotation. He moved Mike Mussina out of last Monday’s start against Pedro Martinez, not wanting Mussina to face the pressure of dueling the Boston Red Sox ace for a third time this season, and now is protecting Clemens from Shea’s slings and arrows.

Mussina and Clemens are both big boys making big bucks, but Torre and the Yankees are all about October and would rather play it conservatively in June. Meantime, Clemens could be headed for a sixth Cy Young Award, if Pedro doesn’t win his third in a row.

Facing the Baltimore Orioles Thursday night, Clemens improved to 7-1 by striking out 10 and giving up only three hits in eight innings of a 4-0 win in which he displayed his usual aggressiveness, throwing several inside fastballs to second baseman Jerry Hairston Jr., one behind his head.

The brash young Baltimore infielder has developed a reputation as something of a hotdog, and Clemens might have been saying, “Get some time in.”

Hairston, still working on his first full season, had a message of his own.

“You reap what you sow,” he said of Clemens. “I have no problem with pitching inside, but when you get into the danger zone of throwing behind somebody’s head, that’s a little scary. What he did to Piazza has taken away from his performance. It’s too bad he doesn’t understand that. I don’t think he’d be pitching the way he does if he was in the National League, facing Randy Johnson, and had to bat himself.”

Said Piazza, asked about Clemens missing the Mets, “It’s none of my concern. We have enough to worry about.”

Amid the Barry Bonds boom, Mark McGwire has a word of advice for the media: Relax.

“The only time you should write he’s on pace for anything is late August or early September,” said the man who hit 70 homers in 1998. “Other than that, I think you guys are wasting your time.

“I always said that to hit 61, you’ve got to have 50 by September. And now, to break 70, you need 60 [by September]. Before, people talked about how hard it was to hit 60, 61. Now they’re talking about hitting 70 as if it’s easier.”

With a few exceptions, the fifth year of interleague play is like the four that came before: West vs. West, Central vs. Central and East vs. East.

However, baseball finally will move to an unspecified interdivision format next year while retaining key geographic rivalries.