Clemens summons up another clutch effort
HOUSTON — They came to Minute Maid Park Saturday waving white towels and making thunder, confident in what they were about to see. A game where age did not matter, nor did what had happened in St. Louis.
None of it did. Roger Clemens went to work at the age of 42, pitched as if he were 32, with the energy as if he were 22.
When Clemens was done – with his four-hitter over seven innings against a St. Louis lineup that had been on fire – the Houston Astros had the 5-2 victory they absolutely had to have in the National League Championship Series. There was another page to put in the Clemens scrapbook – one more moment, one more display of why Cooperstown is waiting.
“No matter what my age or what I’ve done in the past,” he said, “you want to make a good showing.”
This one came without his best stuff. Not the first four innings, anyway, when he just found a way, before his splitter arrived and the mighty Cardinals went down in waves.
“That’s why,” St. Louis’ Larry Walker said, “he’s Roger Clemens.”
The Cardinals still lead the best-of-7 series 2-1, but the Astros send out 20-game winner Roy Oswalt against Jason Marquis today in the second part of their two-ace strategy to get even.
“Nice win for us,” Clemens said. “Now we have our foot in the door just a little bit.”
They have two more games in the noisy comfort of home, where they have won 20 of their last 21.
“We never felt any pressure being down 2-0, because we knew we were coming home,” said Carlos Beltran, who hit his nightly postseason home run. “And we knew they were going to have to face Roger Clemens. If we win again tomorrow and tie it, the pressure’s on them.”
“I feel like we’ve earned the edge,” countered St. Louis manager Tony La Russa, “and somewhere, somehow we’ll make that edge pay off.”
The victory came with Houston power. Jeff Kent’s two-run homer in the first made it 3-1. Solo shots in the eighth by Beltran – for a record-tying, fourth consecutive postseason game, and his seventh of the playoffs – and Lance Berkman made it comfortable.
But the day mostly belonged to Clemens.
“I had a couple of guys from upstairs (Astros executives) floating around the clubhouse,” Clemens said. “I walked in this morning and they were patting me on the back, telling me this is what I’m signed here for.”
But the early innings were a struggle. Walker hit the sixth pitch of the game out of the park. It was like throwing cold water in the faces of the crowd and the Astros.
“He got my attention pretty quick,” Clemens said.
“It showed we just couldn’t count on the fact we were home, and we just couldn’t count on the fact Roger was pitching,” Kent said. “This had to be grinded out. It was a wake-up call. For Roger, too.”
Jim Edmonds led off the second with another homer.
The fourth was long and difficult, with the Cardinals leaving two runners on.
But sometime during the fourth Clemens appeared to find his splitter, a sinking pitch that heads for the strike zone and then vanishes.
“Something happened,” Walker said, “and he became unhittable.”
“My split,” Clemens said, “was a little more violent.”
Clemens struck out seven of the last 13 batters he faced, and left after the seventh and 116 pitches, turning the matter over to closer Brad Lidge and his 97 mph fastball.