Clemens Has 13 Strikeouts in 5-2 Victory

How times haven’t changed: The Angels struck out 13 times against Roger Clemens Thursday night and lost to the Boston Red Sox, 5-2, leaving them 1-3 for their latest stopover at Fenway Park.

How times have changed: The Angels can’t wait to get to Yankee Stadium, where they consider a four-game series against the New York Yankees to be a sorely needed chance to get well.

“A lot of guys are looking forward to seeing George Steinbrenner and Bucky Dent,” was Angel first baseman Wally Joyner’s droll assessment. “Hopefully, it’ll be good. This trip, we’ve hit a couple of teams that were red hot. Unfortunately, we hit them at the wrong time.”

Lately, there’s been no wrong time to hit the Yankees. The House of Steinbrenner is currently in disarray, with Sir George dumping managers and players and dropping the whole mess into the lap of rookie manager Dent. In Dent’s 14-game tenure, the Yankees are 3-11, but only 2-8 in their last 10 games.

After running into streaking teams in Kansas City and Boston during this 4-7 trip, the Angels are desperately seeking any port in the storm--and believe it can be found starting tonight in New York, although you won’t get Doug Rader on the record about it.

“I’m not going to touch that with a 10-foot pole,” Rader said when asked the Yankee question. “I’m not going to comment on that.”

Not for 10 more minutes and a dozen more questions, anyway.

After the crowd in his office dwindled to a handful, Rader conceded, “There’s no question in my mind that we need to win three out of four in New York. No question. That’s imperative.

“We need to get through this road trip either a game above .500 or a game below for the trip. To do that, we need to take three out of four in New York. . . . If we do that, it’ll put us in position to do something.”

By losing three out of four in both Kansas City and Boston, the Angels enter the month of September in a second-place tie in the American League West with the Royals, 2 1/2 games behind Oakland. Three wins in New York would leave them 7-8 on their most strenuous test of the season.

The series at Fenway got out of hand early, with the Angels facing two pitchers named Mike Smithson and Eric Hetzel in Tuesday’s doubleheader and getting swept, the Red Sox outscoring them by a margin of 21-9.

It took an implausible shutout by rookie Jim Abbott Wednesday night to avoid a four-game sweep, for Clemens was looking very much like Clemens in Thursday’s finale.

Bothered by elbow and shoulder soreness earlier in the month, Clemens held up through nine innings this time and seemed to get better as the game progressed. His 13 strikeouts were a season high, but most impressive was the fact that six of them came during the last three innings.

“I thought early on, we had a chance to get to him,” Rader said. “He threw just fastballs until the seventh inning--and not that it’s hard to believe--but I’d say it’s unusual that we didn’t generate more offense than we did.

“Then, he started mixing in some breaking balls and he got tougher.”

Clemens (14-9) was especially tough on Lance Parrish and Jack Howell, the Nos. 7 and 8 hitters in the Angel batting order. Back-to-back in the lineup, both struck out four times against Clemens.

Eight at-bats, eight strikeouts.

“I thought he was awesome,” Howell reported. “What else did you think I’d say?”

Parrish said he’d never seen Clemens throw any better.

“He struck me out four times, so I would say so,” Parrish said.

Let the record show, however, that the Angels had a lead in this game. Claudell Washington, the second man Clemens faced, homered into the right-field seats, giving Angel starter Kirk McCaskill a 1-0 advantage.

But before McCaskill could record an out in the bottom of the first, that lead had vaporized, with Boston scoring three times in the inning.

Wade Boggs, Jody Reed (who ended the night with four hits), Ellis Burks and Mike Greenwell were the first four batters McCaskill (14-8) faced. Each of them produced singles, with Burks and Greenwell driving in runs.

The Red Sox scored their third run on the first out of the inning, a force play on a Nick Esasky grounder.

Danny Heep singled home another run in the fifth, McCaskill’s final inning, and a double by Reed and a sacrifice fly by Greenwell accounted for Boston’s last run in the seventh.

The Angels managed nine hits against Clemens, but only one more run after Washington’s 11th home run of the season. That came on Tony Armas’ RBI pinch-single in the seventh.

The Angels might’ve had another run in the sixth, if Johnny Ray’s motor skills had cooperated. First, Ray stood at home plate to watch a long fly sail down the left-field line and land fair, turning a double into a single. Then, Ray got caught in a rundown, turning a Joyner strikeout into an inning-ending double play.

Rader didn’t fault Ray for the rundown--Ray was running on a full-count pitch, and Joyner is a high-contact hitter--but had to wonder about the delayed reaction at the plate.

“Maybe he thought it was gone, one of those elusive home runs,” Rader said. “I didn’t think it was worth bringing up at the time and I haven’t addressed it yet.

“He probably thought it was foul. That’s certainly no excuse, but in the end, it had no bearing on the game.”

Said Ray: “I didn’t even see it. I thought I fouled it back. That’s basically what happened. I never picked the ball up until it hit the line.”

By then, it was too late, which is kind of the way most of this series went for the Angels.

But now, Boston’s done. Here come the Yanks.

For once, the Angels can hardly wait.

Angel Notes

The Angels will add seven players from triple-A Edmonton today when major league rosters are expanded. In addition to catcher John Orton, already traveling with the team, the Angels will recall two outfielders, two infielders and two pitchers. The outfielders: Dante Bichette (.243, 11 home runs, 40 RBIs at Edmonton) and Max Venable (.271, 1, 45). The infielders: first baseman Jim Eppard (.274, 2, 34) and second baseman Mark McLemore (.244, 2, 34). The pitchers: right-handed starter Mike Fetters (12-8, 3.80) and left-handed reliever Sherman Corbett (6-7, 4.41, nine saves). All except Fetters have previously played for the Angels, Corbett appearing in 34 games with the 1988 Angels.