BOSTON -The hype had been building since Tuesday, when Joe Torre and Jimy Williams announced their respective pitching rotations for the ALCS and it was known that Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez would meet at Fenway Park in Game 3.
For five days it was the hottest ticket in sports, with someone foolishly paying $3,000 for a single seat. The hype seemed justified, too, considering Clemens had pitched 13 years in Boston, winning three of his five Cy Young Awards, and that Martinez, simply is the best pitcher in baseball today, is on his way his second Cy Young.
“I just hope it lives up to that hype,” Torre said on Friday.
Because of Clemens, it didn’t.
The matchup of the millennium was over in about 15 minutes, and that’s only because the visiting Yankees batted first. Once Clemens took the hill it took just two pitches to get a hint that this so-called showdown wasn’t going to last very long.
After taking a ball, Jose Offerman slammed Clemens’ second pitch of the game to the base of the wall in right field for a leadoff triple that Paul O’Neill lost in the sun. The old ballpark went nuts. The Red Sox could have sold 75,000 tickets to this game, but most of the 33,190 fans who did get in not only wanted the Red Sox to win, but to see Clemens pummeled in the process.
“Traitor! Traitor!” they had yelled to him as he drove his green blazer into the players’ parking lot two hours before the game.
“Yankees [stink]!” yelled another.
“Who needs Clemens when you have Pedro,” offered another.
Those sentiments were shared by many in the sellout crowd who have never forgiven Clemens for signing a big-money contract with Toronto three years ago.
“Hey Roger!” read one T-shirt in the crowd. “Would you leave your wife for another woman if she offered you more money?”
When John Valentin followed Offerman by driving a 2-2, letter-high fastball over the 37-foot Green Monster in left-field, it was if the “Curse of the Bambino” had been lifted.
It was downhill from there for Clemens. As the crowd chanted, “Roger, Roger,” he gave up two more runs on six hits in the second inning and opened the by allowing a single to former Yankee Mike Stanley. By then Clemens had given up a home run, a triple, two doubles and two singles, and he had already thrown 60 pitches.
After Clemens got strike one on Brian Daubach, Torre emerged from the dugout as the Fenway fans sensed the end for their former hero. They were right.
Torre had seen enough, signaling for Hideki Irabu from the bullpen as Clemens took the long walk back to the dugout.
Before the game a donut company had passed out thousands of buttons saying, “Reverse the Curse.”
Maybe it is reversed. The Yankees bought Babe Ruth in his prime – but now they’ve bought a tarnished Clemens.
There were reports that Clemens had some stiffness in his lower back, which wasn’t believed to be serious. Certainly, his neck had to be stiff from watching all those line drives sail past him. Clemens’ line was awful: two-plus innings, five runs (all earned), six hits, two walks, two strikeouts.
Meanwhile, Martinez was off to his usual brilliant start. After three innings, he had struck out six Yankees, allowing just one hit. It was clear the Yankees were over-matched, just as clueless as they were in September, when Martinez struck out 17 and allowed only one hit at the Stadium.
By the time he was done, Martinez had struck out a Red Sox postseason record of 12 over seven innings. It gave Martinez 17 consecutive scoreless postseason innings, in which he’s struck out 23.
Truth is this matchup was flawed from the beginning. It was like an old Ali fighting a young Larry Holmes. Clemens, 37, is 10 years older than Martinez and showed every bit of his age.
“Where is Roger?” the Fenway crowd chanted in the seventh inning as the Red Sox’ lead grew to 12-0 and counting.
What we’ve seen all year from Clemens became evident again yesterday. He had trouble locating his fastball and couldn’t win with his breaking ball.
He offered a proverbial feast for the Red Sox, who have a solid core of fastball hitters in Valentin, Jason Varitek and Nomar Garciaparra. Heck, even Trot Nixon, the Sox’ ninth-place hitter, ripped a double to left off Clemens.
You could sense Clemens laboring from the first inning on, taking longer and longer between pitches as the fog of doubt circled him.
This wasn’t the Clemens who threw a shutout in Texas last Saturday to clinch the ALDS. This was the Clemens who lasted just 4″ innings at Anaheim on Sept. 6 and gave up at least four runs in four of last six starts. This was the Clemens the Yankees can’t afford to sign to a long-term contract.
It was the kind of performance that can’t be dismissed as a bad night, either, or blamed on injury. Should the series go seven games, which is extremely likely, Clemens and Martinez are scheduled to meet again Thursday at the Stadium.
Home field or not, Clemens goes into that game as underdog. Maybe that one should billed as the mismatch of the millennium.