Rookie outshines Houston's Rocket
Halsey, D-Backs get best of Clemens
Bob McManaman
The Arizona Republic

May. 20, 2005 12:00 AM

HOUSTON - All week long, anytime somebody came up to Brad Halsey and started asking him about Thursday's matchup against the great Roger Clemens, the rookie left-hander quickly defused the hype.

It's not about Roger and me, he kept saying.

OK, so maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was just about Halsey, a Houston native, against the Houston Astros lineup, which just happened to include the future Hall off Famer Clemens staring back from the mound with those intense, steely blue eyes.
 

But Halsey won on both counts, anyway, pitching seven solid innings to outshine the winningest pitcher alive as the Diamondbacks beat the Astros 6-1 to improve to 5-2 after seven games of their 10-game road trip.

"I know it's special for him," Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin said of Halsey, who retired the first 10 men he faced and won for the first time in five starts. "You're talking about arguably the best pitcher in the history of the game (in Clemens) or at least the top two or three, so I'm sure it was a special day for him."

Halsey, who like Clemens before him, helped the University of Texas capture the College World Series championship, still wasn't making a big deal out of the matchup.

"It's still not really about that," he said afterward. "He had a few defensive letdowns in the first (inning) and we were able to go out and get three runs and I approached it like I always do, I'm going to go after their lineup and I just felt very fortunate because when they did hit the ball well it seemed like it was right after people."

Halsey (3-2) allowed six hits and didn't walk a batter or record a strikeout. Clemens (3-2), whose club committed five errors for the first time since April 7, 1996, vs. San Diego, pitched a season-low six innings with a season-low three strikeouts.

Clemens, though, was impressed with the rookie.

"I know he worked fast," Clemens said. "You've got to slow him down and make him get the ball up, if you're going to get to him. I was down in the tunnel changing undershirts and two or three times, he already had two outs, he was working so quick."

Halsey finished with just 79 pitches, 58 of them for strikes. He had thrown just 54 pitches through six innings.

"That's the key to my game," Halsey said, referring to first-pitch strikes. "You get ahead early, then opposition's batting average decreases dramatically so that's always going to be something I'm going out trying to do."

Arizona got three runs off Clemens in the first, courtesy of two errors, one by Clemens for a bad throw to first base. Alex Cintron and Troy Glaus each picked up RBIs in the process.

After a dicey eighth inning, which saw the Astros load the bases but manage only one run, Luis Gonzalez ended much of the suspense by hitting a three-run homer in the ninth. One of the runs accounted for his 1,200th career RBI and he is two home runs shy of 300 for his career.

The Diamondbacks have won five of their first seven games on their 10-game trip.
View from the press box
Brad Halsey's calm demeanor is amazing. The rookie left-hander is so emotionally steady, you can't tell if he's ahead by 10 runs or down by 10, judging from his presence on the mound. If he continues to develop and maintains this even-keel approach, he could become a great one.
- Bob McManaman