Stand-up guy should sit down

May 30, 2006|On baseball, Nick Cafardo, Globe Staff

TORONTO -- Give the guy credit.

He's been beaten like a drum the past two times out.

There's obviously something wrong with his right ankle, which was hit by a Bernie Williams liner last Wednesday, and it is changing his mechanics. And yet Matt Clement won't give in to a built-in excuse for his recent woes.

Admit to having a bum leg.

If you told us Clement will go on the disabled list, we wouldn't question it.

If you told us that he spends his non-baseball time getting help from sports enhancement coordinator Dr. Don Kalkstein, who now travels with the team to help Clement deal with being hit in the head by a line drive last July, who would doubt it?

Who would deny that such a traumatic play has made Clement gun-shy, thrown off?

Who wouldn't believe that last Wednesday's line drive perpetuated and magnified his problems?

After a 7-6 loss to the Blue Jays last night in which Clement allowed six runs on seven hits, there has to be something wrong.

Trainers came out to look at Clement's leg after Edgardo Alfonzo's ground ball out in the fourth. Jason Varitek thought he saw Clement pull up on his right ankle. Even the catcher thinks he sees something physical.

Clement probably has never lived up to his potential, but he's never been this bad. The Blue Jays might have the best offense in the majors, but they're a team Clement can make look silly if he is himself.

There's a lot of sentiment these days to replace the ``T" at the end of Clement's last name with an ``S." That might solve a lot of the Red Sox' problems. But the fact remains that Clement makes $9 million a year, and anyone taking home that paycheck has to be one of your most reliable pitchers. And that simply isn't happening.

Clement's paycheck is about as big a waste in Boston as A.J. Burnett's the 15th of every month in Toronto.

Burnett has an excuse. He's hurt.

Clement, a stand-up guy, won't say publicly that he's hurt, and he continues to take a boatload of criticism.

He lasted 3 1/3 innings last night, his shortest outing of the season. He's allowed 14 earned runs in his last two starts, covering 7 2/3 innings (16.45 ERA), and last night he allowed two home runs, a two-run shot by Vernon Wells and a solo homer to Lyle Overbay. In five of his 10 starts, he has not gone six innings.

``You know what, I'm going to stand here and take the blame for what happened," he said. ``If I ripped a muscle in my back or my arm or my leg, I'd still take the blame. It's just how I am.

``You play this game and you have to figure out a way to go out every fifth day. When things don't go right, you can't blame it on something else. It's my decision to go out there and pitch, and whether I'm hurt or not, I'm going to find a way to go to battle."