There is more to the Cubs’ pitching staff than the 1-2 punch of Mark Prior and Kerry Wood. Matt Clement let late-arriving fans in on that secret Saturday.
With closer Joe Borowski recovering from an extended outing Friday, Clement worked 7 2/3 solid innings to get credit for the Game 4 victory over Florida. He took a 4-0 lead to the mound in the first inning and made it stand up for an 8-3 victory.
Clement pitched as well as he had in the second game of the Sept. 27 doubleheader against Pittsburgh, when he picked up the victory that clinched the National League Central title.
“I don’t let the focus being on somebody else bother me,” said Clement, who won a career-high 14 games during the regular season. “[Prior and Wood] deserve the focus on them. [But] we’ve pitched as a rotation together, the five of us this year, and helped get this club here..”
Before Saturday night, the Cubs were 5-0 in postseason starts by Wood and Prior and 0-3 in those by Clement and Carlos Zambrano, who will try to wrap up a pennant when he works Game 5 on Sunday.
“There wasn’t anything psychological on the team, but it’s bigger psychologically for Matt Clement to do that,” manager Dusty Baker said. “That was as deep as he has gone in a game in a month or more.”
Clement, who had been 2-2 with a 4.91 ERA in seven starts since Sept. 1, has been bothered by a strained groin muscle. He said he benefited from extra rest–he worked with six days’ rest Saturday–but that it felt “pretty good” during the game.
