BOSTON – Joe Torre is too secure a man to try to claim a huge slice of the credit for the Yankees’ success under his watch. He consistently has listed three chief reasons for the Yankees’ winning ways: Pitching, pitching and pitching.
The pitching staff promises to become a great deal better beginning tonight. Roger Clemens returns at Comiskey Park and Torre isn’t downplaying the importance of that.
“Roger will give us a lift to help David lead the club back,” Torre said. “With Roger on the DL, David Cone has had to do it himself, and he has done a hell of a job.”
If Clemens can revert to the dominance he showed in the second half of 1996 with the Red Sox and in each of his two Cy Young seasons with the Blue Jays, Cone will become the best second-best pitcher in baseball.
In five pre-DL starts, Clemens didn’t pitch at that level. His control wasn’t there. He didn’t own the inside part of the plate as in years past. Clemens said he isn’t allowing himself to use his hamstring problems as an alibi for the control problems, but the tricky leg muscle surely played a part.
“I’m not going to give in to that,” Clemens said. “My location wasn’t what it has to be regardless of how my leg felt. My level of concentration has to be at its highest. It was at times, but at other times it wasn’t.”
Clemens said if he doesn’t feel any hamstring soreness tomorrow, the day after his first start back, he can feel reasonably assured he has put the injury behind him for good.
A healthy Clemens still has a shot to make general manager Brian Cashman look good for pulling the trigger on his first blockbuster trade. As much as the Yankees miss bit players Graeme Lloyd and Homer Bush and valuable left-hander David Wells, Clemens at his best brings more to a club than that trio.
Clemens helps a team win in subtle ways more often than once every five days. Bernie Williams helped to explain how.
“Playing against him, when you knew you were going to face him in the series, it wasn’t just on your mind the day you faced him,” Williams said. “It was in the back of your mind the whole series.”
On his day to start, the energy a pitcher Clemens brings teammates is something that can’t be quantified, but it’s there. The fielders charge back into the dugout with a little extra juice. Even men who play a sport at the highest level get jacked by witnessing greatness up close.
“Sure they do,” said Torre, who played with another all time great in Bob Gibson. “With Gibby, it started as soon as he showed up. I remember going to the ballpark when Gibby was pitching. He’d say, “OK, it’s going to be one hour, 57 minutes, win, lose or draw.” And it always was, almost to the minute. Now if it’s two hours and 40 minutes win, lose or draw you’re ahead of the game.”
The extra energy might start as soon as the all-time great walks through the door, but it kicks into an extra warp with the first pitch. Then it goes up from there.
“Usually guys who are power pitchers, you’re still trying to figure them out in the first and second at-bat,” Williams said. “Then by the third at-bat, you feel like you have a good idea. With Clemens, it seemed like the deeper he got into the game the harder it was to hit him.”
The Yankees didn’t wait until Clemens took the hill to begin improving a pitching staff that ranked sixth in the American League in earned run average (4.76) going into last night’s series finale against the Red Sox. The Red Sox, Angels, Royals, Indians and White Sox all placed ahead of the Yankees in the most telling pitching statistic.
During a 114-win 1998, the Yankees finished with a 3.82 ERA, nearly a run per game lower than this season.
The Yankees took measures to try to improve that situation by designating Tony Fossas for assignment and optioning Jay Tessmer to Columbus. They were replaced with Jeff Nelson, activated from the disabled list, and Todd Erdos, called up from Columbus for one day and maybe longer. Either Erdos or Dan Naulty will come off the roster to make room for Clemens.
Pitching has been the least of the Yankees’ problems of late, but it’s also the key to their running away with the AL East. The Yankees scored 18 runs in the eight games leading into last night’s.
“The floodgates are ready to open,” predicted of the offense.
They always do on clubs with as much hitting as this one. Pitching isn’t as easy to forecast.
“You’ve got to have the pitching,” Torre said. “No question. You can’t freeze that ball and you have to get 27 outs. Sometimes it seems like you’re never going to get those 27 outs.”
The Yankees happily would settle for about 21 high-octane outs from Clemens tonight against the White Sox, 21 outs that could start them back on the way to dominance.
