Sunday, bloody Sunday.

Back on August 3rd I started writing this incomplete entry, I started writing the rest on Sunday:

How you liking me now?

Roger Clemens was booed off the mound Thursday after he allowed eight runs and nine hits in the second inning of the Yankees’ game against the Chicago White Sox.

Only three of the runs were earned. Second baseman Robinson Cano mishandled Jerry Owens’ grounder near the bag with one out, and Clemens threw out Darin Erstad at the plate on Alex Cintron’s dribbler, but the next four batters all got hits off Clemens before manager Joe Torre replaced him.

Somehow, when the Yankees signed the Rocket, I don’t think they imagined him giving up moonshots to opposing players. Since coming up to face the juggernaut that is this year’s Pittsburgh Pirates team and winning his inaugural game of the ’07 season, the Rocket has won two additional games in 11 starts and the team has won one more game that Roger has started making the Yankees record 4 wins and 8 losses in games where the Rocket was on the mound.

Tomorrow is the Rocket’s birthday and he’ll be 45. I guess it’s hard to expect much more from a pitcher at that point in his career. Thing is, the Rocket is baseball’s highest paid player and his pro-rated salary equates to slightly more than what the Yankees are paying Alex Rodriquez. I keep hearing Yankee broadcasters kill the recently demoted Kei Igawa but the funny thing is that the Yankees have a record of 7 and 5 in the games Igawa has appeared in.

As things have turned out, the entire Yankee season is on the line with tomorrow’s game against Cleveland. The Yankees have an alarming 8 and 10 record in the games 45-year-old Clemens has started. Clemens made 17 starts for the Yankees this season ending up with a mediocre 6 and 6 record and a very pedestrian 4.18 era. Hardly the stuff of stoppers and a big dropoff from his 18 and 4 record he had in his last Cy Young season just three short years ago.

Pitchers are funny in a way because sometimes a pitcher’s skills can slowly diminish over the course of time while others the process can happen seemingly overnight. As Clemens takes the mound tomorrow, I have to wonder how secure the Yankee fan feels betting their future on the arm of ‘The Rocket.’

Normally, when the highest paid pitcher in baseball takes the mound for any team it would be a no brainer but, in Yankeeland things don’t operate on a normal scale. Yankeeland is akin to the Bizarro World of baseball where mistakes can be covered over by signing a 45-year-old pitcher for just over $263,636 an inning.

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Now that was where I had gotten to on Sunday and then that evening the Rocket went out and pitched three mediocre innings. So, the question for all the Yankee fans on the day after the season ended is this: was he worth it?

Clemens will cost the Yankees $26.1 million this year - his salary of $18.7 million plus a $7.5 million tax the team will pay MLB for exceeding a certain salary threshold, the so-called luxury tax. Gennaro estimates that Clemens will add six wins to the team. The model is based on the assumption Clemens will perform as he has in the recent past - an admittedly iffy proposition for a soon-to-be 45-year-old pitcher.

Looking back on the season, did bringing Roger Clemens back for a shortened period really make that much of a difference? Was he worth all that money? I’m just curious (more of me being Devil’s Advocate here) because that amazing excess that the Yankees showed cost them nearly half of what three of the four playoff teams spent in total payroll!

Cleveland Indians	$61,673,267
Colorado Rockies	$54,424,000
Arizona Diamondbacks	$52,067,546