ST. PETERSBURG – Roger Clemens is confident he will be able to make a postseason start. However, he won’t pitch again in the regular season, and while Joe Torre said he would be comfortable with Clemens needing only a simulated game in order to be ready for the ALDS, the manager didn’t know when that simulated action would take place.
Clemens, who arrived at the Yankees’ minor league complex Monday morning and threw off a mound, may have pushed his balky left hamstring a bit too far working out in a pool Monday night.
“They are making me get off it,” said Clemens, who was officially scratched from last night’s start against the Devil Rays in the four hours before the game. Kei Igawa, the $46 million bust, took Clemens place and didn’t allow an earned run in five innings of the Yankees’ 7-6 loss.Since Clemens won’t pitch in the remaining five regular season games and hasn’t started since Sept. 16 in Boston when he was coming back from a barking right elbow caused by a ligament problem and a painful blister problem on the right foot, the 45-year-old future Hall of Famer was asked about his chances of working next month when the Yankees will face the Angels or Indians in the best-of-five ALDS.
“I fully expect to be out there,” Clemens said.
But are those expectations realistic? Even Clemens admitted one of his biggest hurdles is how hard he pushes his body.
“I need to try to keep myself from myself,” said Clemens, who is 6-6 with a 4.18 ERA in 18 games (17 starts). “I will continue to do things with my upper body and keep my arm strong.”
While general manager Brian Cashman downplayed the severity of the problem, the Yankees have paid Clemens $14.2 million so far to not only lead them into the postseason but to help them win October games. Now, that appears cloudy. “If we don’t know, I can’t give you an answer,” Joe Torre said when asked if he had a date Clemens needed to let the team know if he can pitch. “A lot depends on where he goes form here to there and what he is able to do. We are going to have to have a pretty good idea of what we got here.”
When Clemens talked to Cashman by phone during the second inning of Monday’s 4-1 loss to the Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium, the decision to scratch Clemens last night was already made but not yet communicated to the pitcher. Clemens didn’t fight the decision; an action that tells you Clemens knows his leg isn’t right.
“He felt the same way but he said he could go if we needed him,” Cashman said.
What the Yankees need to decide before submitting their 25-man playoff roster next week is how much Clemens can give them opposed to what they would get by putting rookie Phil Hughes in the rotation instead of Clemens.
“If you told me it was the last game of the season and the same situation (needing a win to get into the postseason) nothing would stop him from pitching,” Cashman said. “He would give us everything he has.”
Pressed about what it would mean in relation to Clemens having been away for an extended period of time, Cashman didn’t want to play the What If game.
“I don’t want to get into hypothetical, he could be fine in a couple of days,” Cashman said.