Rough Start May Be End for Clemens

Year to year and season to season in the best of health, at 43 years old and after 341 victories, Roger Clemens trudged from a World Series mound after two innings Saturday night, day to day with a strained left hamstring.

Afterward, his leg wrapped and his jaw set soberly, Clemens took one question and was carted away. The Houston Astros had first lost him and then Game 1, and this was not how any of them had wished to begin the first World Series in franchise history.

“I had the problem in the second inning, and fought my way through that inning, got through that inning,” he said. “I came up here as quick as I could to take my [thigh] sleeve off and have them check it and see if there was anything I could do so I could continue. And the fluid already started to build up in ... my leg. So, they gave me some medication and I’m going to treat it and that’s all I can tell you from there.”

After 54 pitches, only four at which the Chicago White Sox swung and missed, Clemens was gone, off the field, down the tunnel and directly, perhaps, to the Hall of Fame. The White Sox won, 5-3, at U.S. Cellular Field.

His regular turn would come up again in Game 6, if there is one, or the Astros could hold him out until Game 7, if there is one.

Otherwise, he is done for the season, and then he’ll see about retirement again, now an annual event. With help from Andy Pettitte, Clemens’ teammate and friend, the Astros twice persuaded Clemens to delay retirement, to help them win, to pitch before his family for just one more season.

He twice agreed, and on a cool October night, threw the first World Series pitch ever by a man in an Astro uniform. He gave up three runs in two rigorous innings. Two ground balls were hit to the right side in the second inning, and Clemens instinctively broke twice to cover first base, and felt again the twinge in a hamstring that had been troublesome for six weeks.

Owner Drayton McLane and second baseman Craig Biggio visited with Clemens during the game, as Clemens iced.

“Hopefully,” Biggio said, “it’s not too bad and we can work the thing along.”

He said he asked Clemens how it was.

“I got a response,” Biggio said, “and I told him I’m sorry.”

If it was the end for Clemens, either because of the injury or the circumstance of the series, these final pitches were little like his previous final pitches -- Game 4 of the 2003 World Series, when fans in Florida flashed photographs and Marlin players applauded what all believed was his exit.

This time, he struck out Scott Podsednik on a high fastball and left his team with a 3-1 deficit. The Astros pushed back into a tie, then lost late, finally to a White Sox bullpen that had not made an appearance since Game 1 of the American League championship series, a span of 129 outs, 158 hitters and 528 pitches.

Three hours after he left the game, Clemens was still buried in ice, and hopeful.

“He’s trying to do his best to be ready again,” said Jay Lucas, Astro vice president of communications. “You know him. He’ll do whatever he can.”

The injury, and the six innings of bullpen work that resulted, was a hard early blow for the Astros, often carried along by the spirit and toughness of Clemens.

“It just stinks to have one of the greatest pitchers ever,” Astro first baseman Mike Lamb said, “and not be able to use him.”