Clemens Wins Third Time in Ten Starts
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by Niteowl049
Baseball Notebook
Note: More than likely this will be the last blog until after we move from Pineville, Louisiana to Knoxville, Tennessee late next week. It may be the middle of August before the blog can resume since we don't even know who our internet provider will be in Knoxville. If we do have internet here still and a major baseball story breaks may write a short blog about it. Thank you to the readers who have been reading these posts since May of 2004. There have been 12,982 visitors to the blog since May 20th of last year so should have the 13,000th visitor today. Wish this move had been during the offseason so we wouldn't be without internet in middle of exciting race. Thank you again for your patience and understanding of the situation.
--Andrew
Clemens Wins For Second Time in Last Nine Starts
Since his 2007 debut win over the Pirates, Roger Clemens has only two wins in his last nine starts. He allowed one run in games with Angels and Blue Jays and received no decision in both games so his record could easily be 5-4 if the Yankees offense had given him any support. In his three wins the Yankees have scored 23 runs and have scored a total of seven runs in his four losses.
Clemens has pitched well for a 44 year old pitcher that turns 45 on the 4th of August but when you consider how much he is being paid per start he needs to win more games than he loses to really have much of an impact on the team. At the end of June his ERA was 5.32 and has lowered it to 3.72 with a July ERA of 2.62.
Yankees and Red Sox have both won four in a row so they are not gaining ground on the Red Sox and with the Red Sox 21 games over .500 and Yankees 6 games over .500 the Yankees will have to have some luck on their side since they will both win or lose on the same day many times with no change in standings.
On May 29th, the Yankees were 21-29 and 14 1/2 games behind the Red Sox and tied for last place with the Rays. After the game yesterday they are 52-46 and 7 1/2 games behind Red Sox almost cutting the Red Sox lead in half and have been 31-17 in that time span.
In their next 12 games the Yankees will face the Royals, Orioles and White Sox so the schedule seems to be in their favor playing teams under .500. Red Sox are playing three more games with the Indians then play Rays and Orioles so the Red Sox need to sweep the Indians series since Yankees will be playing under .500 team and likely to win most of the games with Royals and Orioles this week.
Balco Has Six Games Left In S.F. to Reach 756 Home Runs
It will be interesting to see how the rest of the week plays out for Balco Bonds after he failed to hit a home run in the first game of a seven game homestand. He has only hit two home runs since the 3rd of July and those were only home runs he has hit in last 16 games and both of those came last week in one game at Wrigley Field.
If he were to hit one or two this week before the six game road trip starting next in Los Angeles and San Diego he would be faced with the prospect of hitting the tying and leading home runs on the road. Balco doesn't really want to hit the home run that passes Aaron in Los Angeles where he would probably receive a less than cordial celebration if he passes Aaron there. If Bonds is sat during that road trip it may get the attention of Bud "Deer Caught in the Headlights" Selig and he may force them to play Bonds on the road if he is being held out for more than one game at a time due to some trumped up injury.
However will let history play out in San Francisco then see what the situation is. Balco has a flair for the dramatic though and would love to hit three home runs in the remaining six games of the homestand to avoid hitting it in front of the Dodger home crowd.
