Major League Baseball fans have enjoyed a season of unexpected surprises in 2005. They include the Baltimore Orioles, who have thus far owned the American League East, the Chicago White Sox still holding the best team record in baseball, and the Washington Nationals who are holding onto the lead in the National League East, as the former Montreal Expos are delighted to finally have a crowd waiting for them at the ballpark.
Two other not fully unexpected performances but remarkable for their ages and compiled years in the majors are those of pitchers Kenny Rogers, playing for the Texas Rangers, and Roger Clemens, ace of the Houston Astros pitching staff.
Rogers, now 40-years-old in his second tour of duty with the Rangers when resigned in 2000, had what many talking heads considered an overachieving 2004 season with a record of 18-9. But in 2005. he has been dominant, and had a nine-game winning streak and an American League best ERA of 1.98 going into his start against the Angels on June 22nd.
Most major leaguers, as outstanding as Rogers has been in 2005, it would seem would get more press and create more of a stir, which is why Rogers' feat seems all the more remarkable. He just does his job, without calling attention to himself as he has done throughout his major league career.
After starting his big league career with the Rangers in 1989, he stayed with them until 1995. His record was decent, but nothing stellar, nor was the bottom of the cellar play of the Rangers during that time. In 1995, Rogers signed with the New York Yankees, at the same time manager Joe Torre arrived. The following season, 1996, the Yankees won the World Series, and have not looked back ever since.
Following a stint with the Oakland Athletics in 1998 and the New York Mets in 1999, only to be traded back to the Athletics again that very same year, Rogers battled injuries and the instability of not being comfortable with one club. Since 2000 after he returned to his roots, Rogers was at times an above average pitcher, but was not "lights out" until 2004, yet still there was talk of his year being an overachievement and an anomaly.
But this year, Rogers continues his plight of 2004 and does so with less and less pomp and circumstance. If the Rangers can hold on and can get some good pitching from the rest of the rotation, which has imploded as of late, they have a chance to catch the Anaheim, Los Angeles, California, or whatever-you-want-to-call-them Angels. Their stretch of seven games over 10 days commencing June 20th will give the Rangers' a good shot to overcome them.
Back in Houston, Roger Clemens, at this time in the season, outright owns the best ERA in all of Major League Baseball. On June 17th against the Kansas City Royals, Clemens kept his 32 scoreless inning streak alive along with his 333rd game win and pitched seven strong innings to win his 334th on June 21st while lowering his ERA to a Major League best at 1.51, the lowest in his 21-year career through 15 starts.
For his 333rd win, Clemens pitched six innings of shut-out ball and has been on fire since the beginning of the season with 97 strikeouts to boot. The sad reality is that he has only six wins to his three losses with quite a few indecisions due to the stingy run production of his teammates. Unfortunately this season, unlike the Cinderella-like ending for the Astros in 2004, most pontificators have not been shy about stating that fans flock to Minute Maid Park merely to see the immortal-like feats of Clemens and not the Astros.
At 42, Clemens shows no signs of aging and exhibits the same fierce determination and competitive nature he has brought to the ballpark since the beginning of this career back in Boston in 1984. One wonders what keeps the Rocket so motivated, especially while playing for a last-place club which celebrates as if it had won the World Series whenever Houston gets a win this season.
The rumor mills are alive and well, however, with the Yankees trying to get their team back on course, but still with pitchers Jarrett Wright and Kevin Brown both on the DL. Carl Pavano has not been nearly as good as advertised, and Randy Johnson has only just started looking like Johnson in his last two starts. With two rookies shoring up the rotation for them, Clemens who has intimated that the Yankees would be the only club he would consider playing for other than Houston, it is indeed a nice-sounding idea for Yankee fans.
However, given the contract he has setup with the Astros and how embedded he is with his family and community, it seems unlikely. Most people fully believe he will remain with the Astros organization upon his retirement, precluding an in-season trade.
In the meantime we can enjoy the two Rogers, both over 40, both former Yankees and World Series champions with the Yankees and now both homeboy Texans. Let's not think about the what-ifs and what the near future might or might not hold and just take it all in. For when these guys eventually hang it up, they will leave a void nearly as big as the state of Texas.
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