Tonight, Roger Clemens took the mound for the Yankees after a tough three game series in Oakland where Miguel Tejada beat the Yankees twice in the ninth inning. Clemens needed a big game after the swirl of second guessing (including the Fan's) of Torre's decision making process that probably cost the Yankees the third game. The old man was coming off of his first nine inning shutout in years. Could he deliver?

That question was in doubt in the fourth inning with the Yankees leading 5-1. Alex Rodriguez started the fourth with a single. The next batter, Rafael Palmiero, singled to send Rodriguez to third. Clemens then walked Mark Teixeira to load the bases with no outs. The game hung in the balance.

The next batter was old friend, Shane Spencer, who has been hitting well. Clemens went with his still dominating fastball and Spencer popped up in the infield. Laynce Nix was next and the youngster was overpowered by the old man and struck out swinging on a 94 MPH fastball right down the middle.

The next batter was Ramon Nivar, a slap hitter. Slap hitters are always the bane of hard throwers. It doesn't matter to a slap hitter how hard you throw. They just want to get the bat on the ball anyway and run. Clemens got two strikes on him and Nivar fouled off the next few pitches. Clemens then heaved one more fastball and Nivar, the slap hitter, slapped it up the middle. It was headed for centerfield and two runs. But the old man snagged it with a lunge and threw Nivar out easily at first. Game over.

Clemens, who seems so relaxed now that he has reached all of his goals, has pitched sixteen innings in his last two starts and has only given up two runs. The Rangers had been pounding the ball, but not on this night. On this night, the old man showed why he is a Hall of Famer and who will end his career this year the way he started it twenty years ago...with a winning record and overpowering stuff. This is a career of legend and there's only a few more pages to be written.


To give Torre some credit, the manager made a great lineup change and put Jeter at the top of the lineup and moved the struggling Soriano down to seventh. Soriano's OBP has sunk to the .330 mark and he was becoming a liability up there. Jeter has responded by hitting .360 in his last seven games with an OBP of .429! Jeter is now batting .326 for the year with an OBP of .395. This move makes a lot of sense as Jeter has a lifetime OBP of .386 and has eleven leadoff homers in his career.

Torre has also put Giambi back at first base and is DHing Johnson. Giambi responded by going three for four with an amazingly crushed homerun in the upper deck of the stadium. Some players just can't DH and Giambi seems to be one of them.