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Rocket science Clemens will try to turn around playoff fortunes
SEATTLE (AP) -- Roger Clemens has made 14 postseason starts and still has more Cy Young Awards than wins. The only five-time Cy Young winner is just 3-5 with a 4.32 ERA in the playoffs and World Series. "The only time I would experience any uneasy feeling was, I think, my first couple of postseason starts," said Clemens, scheduled to pitch against Seattle's Paul Abbott on Saturday night in Game 4 of the AL championship Series. Going into Friday night, the Yankees had lost just four of their last 26 postseason games, and Clemens was the loser of three of them: Game 3 of the 1999 ALCS against Boston, and Games 1 and 4 of this year's division series against Oakland. He pitched on three days' rest last Saturday against Oakland and trailed 3-0 after 13 pitches, walking two of his first three batters and giving up a three-run homer to Olmedo Saenz. His ERA during the playoffs this year is 8.18. "It is very disappointing, because I want to give our guys a chance -- who we all know have been struggling to produce runs," he said Friday. "You make, really, one mistake." Clemens is 2-1 with a 2.25 ERA in three starts at Safeco Field, allowing five hits in seven shutout innings in his last start, a 9-1 Yankees win over Abbott on Aug. 28. "I've pitched here a couple of times and I enjoy it," he said. "As far as the mound goes, it looks close, from the pitcher's point of view." Abbott won Game 2 of the first-round series against Chicago, allowing two runs -- one earned -- and five hits in a 5 2-3 innings at Comiskey Park. He left with a 4-2 lead, and the Mariners went on to win 5-2, heading home with a 2-0 series lead. After elbow surgery in 1998 and knee surgery last year, the 33-year-old right-hander considering the first postseason of his career "cherry on top." "I've been waiting for the process to ditch the journeyman title," Abbott said. "Been like that for the last three years." He was 9-7 with a 4.22 ERA during the regular season, but just 0-3 in his last five starts. He said he doesn't feel any increased pressure about pitching in the playoffs. "We were playing in the last two weeks in must-win situations," he said. "My last two starts were against Oakland and Anaheim, and they were playoff-type games. And in Chicago, obviously, if you don't win that series, you don't get here. It's all the same. Same intensity, same anxiety, same everything."
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