Roger Clemens turned the page on another chapter of his storybook career Monday night earning victory number 350 behind 8 innings of a two hit, one run gem. The win marked the first time a Major league pitcher has reached the 350 win milestone since Warren Spahn last achieved it for the Milwaukee Braves on Sept. 29, 1963. On 97 pitches, Clemens snapped a personal three game losing streak retiring the final 15 batters before departing after the eighth inning. The 44 year old Clemens is now 12 wins away from sole possession of 7th place on the all-time wins list behind Kid Nichols. After snapping a streak of 200 straight starts with a strikeout in his last effort against Baltimore, Clemens returned to form with 4 strikeouts, reaching 4,630 in his career, now 14 more than Randy Johnson and good for 2nd behind Nolan Ryan on the all-time list.

On the power of Bobby Abreu’s majestic right field upper deck homerun, the Yankees broke a 1-1 tie in the sixth inning and never looked back. During the four run sixth inning, Alex Rodriguez collided with fellow MVP Justin Morneau following an errant throw from Luis Castillo. Rodriguez was safe on the play but would leave later in the inning with a strained left hamstring. If it could get any worse for the struggling Bombers, it just did. A-Rod will be re-evaluated on Tuesday, but any time out of the lineup is damaging to a team that does not feature a single player with homeruns in double digits. As sad as a fact that is to hear, picture this, without A-Rod’s 28 homeruns, the Yankees would rank second to last ahead of only the Washington Nationals in team home runs with 52. With Rodriguez, the Yankees rank 14th with 80 homeruns, but take away that power threat and the Yankees will likely be forced to start shopping for some extra power.

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