Matt Clement

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Matt Clement
Boston Red Sox — No. 30
Starting Pitcher
Bats: Right Throws: Right
Major League Baseball debut
September 6, 1998 for the San Diego Padres
Selected MLB statistics
(through 2006)
Win-loss     87-86
ERA     4.47
Strikeouts     1217
Former teams

    Matthew Paul Clement [cluh-MENT] (born August 12, 1974 in McCandless Township, Pennsylvania) is a starting pitcher in Major League Baseball who plays for the Boston Red Sox. Previously, Clement played for the San Diego Padres (1998-2000), Florida Marlins (2001) and Chicago Cubs (2002-04). He bats and throws right-handed.

    From 1998 through 2005, Clement has posted an 82-81 record with 1174 strikeouts and a 4.37 ERA in 1347.3 innings.

    Clement has a sinking fastball in the low 90s and a hard slider he mixes with a four-seamer and a changeup. He has held opposing batters to a .233 batting average from 2002-05, while posting a 47-42 record and a 3.99 ERA.

    In June 2004, Clement was 6-2 and an obvious candidate to be named to the All-Star Game. But in his next six starts before the break, Clement went 0-4, despite a 2.15 ERA. His run support in those starts was just 1.19 runs per game. He finished with a 3.68 ERA but went 9-13 for the Cubs, who scored only 79 runs in his 30 starts (which is 4.03 runs of support per game, the sixth-lowest mark in the NL). Against American League teams in interleague play, Clement had a 7-7 record with a 3.60 ERA in 19 starts.

    Contents

    [edit] 2005

    • July 9 - For the first time in his big league career, Clement was selected for the All-Star Game, replacing injured Blue Jays pitcher Roy Halladay. Clement's record was 10-2 before the All-Star break, and he finished the season at 13-6 with a 4.57 ERA. While Clement has a tendency to cool off after the All-Star break, he was also struck in the head on July 26 by a line drive from Carl Crawford of the Devil Rays, which may have attributed to a weaker second half in 2005.

    [edit] 2006

    • Clement had a dismal 2006, pitching only 65 innings and posting an ERA of 6.61. He was on the disabled list for most of the year, for problems many sportswriters and fans considered primarily psychological as opposed to physical. However, he underwent shoulder surgery at the end of the season which seems to indicate that he had at least some real physical problems. He is not expected to return until late into the 2007 season, if at all.

    [edit] Facts

    • On May 28, 2004, Clement became the 21st big league pitcher and the first Cubs' hurler in over a century to hit three batters in one inning to tie a major league record. In the fifth inning of the first game of a doubleheader against the Pirates, Clement drilled Bobby Hill, Jason Kendall and Craig Wilson.
    • On May 12, 2004 against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Clement had to throw 18 pitches during a single at-bat to Alex Cora in the bottom of the 7th inning. Cora fouled 14 straight pitches off Clement before finally hitting a home run. It is possibly the longest at-bat in major league history, but difficult to verify since pitch counts did not become official statistics until 1985.

    He also has a sister named Jamie Clement.

    [edit] Trivia

    • His ineffectual pitching during the 2006 season has earned him the nicknames "DoorMatt" and "HazMatt" on Red Sox talk radio
    • Throughout his career he has been known for his robust goatee, and fans in the crowd are known to wear fake goatees on days he pitches.

    [edit] External links

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