Enough to drive you mad: Clemens allows 2 hits in 6 shutout innings, but he can’t get a win
Imagine this nightmare pitching scenario if you will: you’re 43 still years old and still confounding Father Time and the laws of Nature by having a career year. Your ERA has been between 1.30 and 1.50 for most of the season (it currently is 1.51), and your ERA on the road is a ridiculous 0.52. In spite of the unmitigated brilliance, your record is only a middling 11-6. Why, you ask? Well, if you’re Roger Clemens, you’ve received almost nothing in the way of run support from your fellow Houston Astros. This story has departed the realm of the ridiculous and is headed straight for the domain of the sublime.
Houston has been shut out 16 times this season, eight in starts by Clemens. Five of those games have been 1-0 losses. So, the story line here is that you have the oldest pitcher in baseball having a career year, and yet almost no one is paying attention to him for any sort of postseason awards because the team behind him frankly sucks whenever he takes the mound.
Clemens is far too classy to blast his teammates publicly, but you’ve got to think that on some level he’s wondering how much one man can be expected to do. We are quite likely watching the Rocket’s last orbit around Major League Baseball, and his teammates are celebrating the occasion by doing their impression of the Bad News Bears.
I don’t think it’s being a homer to make a case for Roger Clemens getting his 8th Cy Young Award. His numbers alone make the case for him being by far the best pitcher in Major League Baseball, never mind the National League. That he is doing it at the athletically decrepit age of 43 is beyond impressive.
Realistically, Clemens will probably won’t get the Cy Young he so richly serves, simply because of the Astros’ miserable performance while he is on the mound. There are pitchers out there with much better won-loss records who are also having standout seasons- St. Louis’ Chris Carpenter (19-4 after beating Florida last night), f’rinstance. It would be nice to see Clemens get the run support that the Astros are capable of and that he deserves. A less committed and less mature player would have long ago given voice to his frustration- and who could have blamed him? That Clemens hasn’t unloaded on his teammates is to me all the more impressive.
Roger Clemens deserves better than pitching for the National League equivalent of the East Bumfuck Little League All-Stars. Thankfully, he recognizes that he can only control what he can control. He can’t swing the bat for his teammates, and bitching and moaning isn’t going to make things any better. It would be nice to see Clemens win another Cy Young; honestly, who deserves it more than he does? Of course, one doesn’t always get what one deserves, does one?
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