Clemens vs. Cubs: Not likely
HOUSTON — Chris Volstad might be the de facto ace of the Cubs’ pitching staff the rest of the season, and he was pitching Monday night, gunning for his third victory in four starts and a chance to say something about his future with the club.
And all anyone wanted to talk about Monday was whether some 50-year-old guy with a beer gut might take his circus act to the mound against the Cubs before the season’s over.
Welcome to the Cubs’ 2012 stretch run — not to mention football season.
Volstad’s five innings of adequate pitching Monday might be more than Roger Clemens can offer at the big-league level right now — and it was more than enough to get a win against the Class AAA lineup the Astros field these days.
But even on a day the Cubs beat the Astros 4-1 to match their seasonhigh with a fourth consecutive victory — and pushed the notion of a 100-loss season further away — former pitching great Clemens and a possible big-league comeback start for the Astros dominated the conversation around Minute Maid Park.
It doesn’t sound likely, but Astros owner Jim Crane said before the game there’s a chance Clemens pitches a game for the Astros this year and didn’t rule out the possibility it could be against the Cubs.
“We haven’t heard from Roger, so that’s still up in the air,’’ said Crane, who at one point pulled out his Blackberry to show reporters an e-mail listing 50-and-older players who competed in the majors. “It’s not unprecedented.’’
It also sounds as if it’s not going to happen — even though everybody involved seems to be saying everything but “no.’’
Crane said the Astros won’t let him pitch against a contender and risk making a sideshow out of a game with playoff implications. That leaves the Cubs and Phillies this week or the Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers on the road the final week.
Clemens, a member of the independent Sugar Land Skeeters, responded by telling Houston’s local Fox-TV affiliate that he has no intention of “wasting his time’’ to pitch against a team such as the Cubs or Brewers.
“I can tell you right now and they would know, too, that if I was going to do it, I am going to pitch against a contender. That’s who I want to knock out,’’ Clemens told the station. “Pitching against somebody that’s not in contention wouldn’t be any fun for me. It’s not going to happen.’’
Sveum likes the idea of facing Clemens, if only for the thrill his young team might get.
“Where the seasons are with our clubs, it’d be nice for the guys to say they faced Roger Clemens,’’ he said. “If the fans came out … there’d obviously be a lot of hype that day. It’d bring something to the game, anyway.’’
More important: keeping Volstad on the 3-3, 4.08 track he’s been on since returning from the minors eight starts ago — and giving the $2.7-million pitcher a chance to make a case to stick through another year of arbitration.
“Everything is going to be evaluated and then it’ll be evaluated again during the winter,’’ Sveum said. “But the way he’s pitched, the conviction and everything, it’s going to be an interesting decision.”