With Just a Little Luck, Clemens Says, His Record Would Match Last Year’s

What’s wrong with Roger Clemens?

Last year’s American League Most Valuable Player and Cy Young Award winner blew his second big lead in 11 days Monday night and is 7-6 with a 3.64 earned-run average.

Clemens claims he’s the same pitcher who was 15-2 at the All-Star break last season, adding that this year he perhaps has been just a little less lucky.

“I just need to get one or two breaks here or there,” Clemens said Tuesday. “I’ve been throwing above-average most of the time.”

His manager and coaches say his spring training holdout over a contract dispute hurt his control, but that he hasn’t lost the velocity that helped him strike out a major league-record 20 Seattle Mariners in a game last year.

“He missed spring training and that had to have hurt him, location-wise,” Boston Red Sox Manager John McNamara said. “But he’s throwing hard and he’s the same competitor.”

And the men who have to bat against Clemens say he hasn’t lost much, if anything.

“Yeah, I see a difference,” Angel third baseman Doug DeCinces said, smiling. “Last year, he threw 96 m.p.h. and this year it’s 95. And that off-speed forkball he struck me out with twice (Monday night) is new, too.”

But how long can Clemens’ travails be attributed to misfortune and the fact he missed a few weeks in Florida?

Consider: In his first 33 starts last season, Clemens was 24-4. In 23 starts since being hit on the right elbow by a line drive off the bat of Baltimore’s John Stefaro in the last regular-season game of 1986, he is 8-7.

Clemens, who did not miss a start after the incident (he lost to the Angels in the opening game of the playoffs five days later), laughs at the possibility that he still is suffering any ill effects.

“I drink lots of milk,” he said. “My bones are real strong. No, that is not a problem.”

Clemens thinks he knows part of the problem, though. He doesn’t think umpires are giving him the high strikes they did last season.

“I’d rather not comment on that (the umpiring) right now,” Clemens said. “I just want to weather this storm. Yes, I’ve noticed a little difference, but once you start talking about it, it gets worse.

“I don’t know if something has been said (to the umpires) or what, but I need them to be consistent and on the top of their game to help me.”

And what about that 7-0 advantage over the Angels he squandered Monday night? Just bad luck, Clemens said.

“I had good velocity and a pretty good fastball left near the end (the Angels’ radar gun clocked him at 93 m.p.h. in the seventh inning),” he said. “I pitched as well as I could pitch. It came down to a play that just didn’t happen.”

Boston left fielder Jim Rice got his glove on a ball hit by Wally Joyner with two out in the seventh, but dropped it when he bumped into the wall. Joyner was credited with a two-run triple and when DeCinces followed with a homer, Clemens was looking at a shower instead of a shutout going into the eighth.

“He didn’t pitch nine innings every game last year, either,” said Bill Fischer, the Boston pitching coach. “It’s just that everything is magnified in comparison to last year’s performance. Physically, he’s fine. His confidence may not be where it was last year, but his stuff is just as good.

“Hell, he’s struggling and he still has a chance to win 20 games.”