Roger Clemens won his 350th game last night, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t some potentially bad news for the Yankees:
The 90-mile-an-hour fastball clipped the inside corner, freezing Lew Ford to end the top of the eighth inning and finish the most satisfying workday of Roger Clemens’s season.
The Yankees were on their way to a 5-1 victory over the Minnesota Twins, the 350th career win for Clemens and a respite from his team’s problems. As Clemens lumbered back to the dugout, Derek Jeter bounced up from behind him and slapped his glove on the back of Clemens’s thigh.
Alex Rodriguez could offer no such congratulations because he was already gone from the game. He ran into Twins first baseman Justin Morneau in the sixth inning and strained his upper left hamstring. Rodriguez, who has played every game this season, will have a magnetic resonance imaging test today.
“Right now, it’s just a little sore and it’s tender,” Rodriguez said. “I’ll get up early in the morning and see how I feel.”
On a night that should have eased the Yankees’ anxiety — even the struggling Bobby Abreu had three hits, including a home run — they could not fully relax. Rodriguez’s injury is an obvious cause for worry.
“I’m concerned — damn right, I’m concerned,” Manager Joe Torre said. “I just hope it’s not going to be a long-term thing for us.”
You and me both Joe.
