Twilight star

He has started seven games and pitched seven innings in each game. He's only 2-1 (the Astros have scored 11 runs in his seven starts), but his ERA is 1.10. He's given up only 31 hits and 16 walks and has struck out 50 in 49 innings. He has allowed zero runs in four of his starts. He has not given up a run on the road and righthanded batters are hitting .148 against him. He's even hitting .357 with a couple of RBIs.

As Ted Sarandis would say . . . wow. The man is 42 years old. And he is still the best power pitcher in baseball. He's hit 97 miles per hour on the radar gun this season.

It's hard to believe now that he actually retired after the 2003 season. His last appearance on a big league mound was going to be the seventh game of the 2003 American League Championship Series when the Red Sox routed him early en route to what looked like a Boston trip to the World Series. That was before He Who Must Not Be Named left Pedro Martinez on the mound and Pedro coughed up the lead. All that, plus Aaron Boone's blast, erased Clemens's lame departure. And so he came back to pitch in the World Series and again we thought we saw him for the last time when he pitched seven innings of Game 4 in Miami against the Marlins.

But then the Astros and Andy Pettitte talked him out of retirement. It was agreed that Clemens could go to all of his kids' games and still pitch for the hometown team every fifth day. So he went out and won his seventh Cy Young Award, finishing 18-4 and taking the Astros to the seventh game of the NLCS against the St. Louis Cardinals. One more win and he'd have started the fourth game of the World Series against the Red Sox in Houston.

Now he's dominating the National League again. He's been even better than he was last year in Cy Seven. Never a bad outing. He keeps his woeful team in every game. Nine years after Dan Duquette sent him into the twilight, Clemens is still one of the best pitchers in baseball. Nineteen years after he started the season 14-0 for the World Series-bound Red Sox, Clemens still has them swinging and missing.