Scoring down across baseball as game emerges from steroid era

During a casual chat in the Tampa Bay Rays clubhouse the other day about how scoring is down throughout the major leagues, hitting coach Derek Shelton noted one possible reason for the decline is "the game is clean now."

He citied some other factors, such as better advance scouting on hitters -- including extensive video work by pitchers as they exploit weaknesses in opposing lineups. There also is no denying that there is more good young pitching in the game than a decade ago, since teams began to put a premium on drafting and developing young arms.

The Rays' rotation, for instance, is entirely home grown and more are on the way.

But it was that one remark -- "the game is clean now" -- that stuck with me. So I did some checking and it basically confirmed the obvious. American League teams are averaging 4.27 runs per game so far this season, by far the lowest level since the Rays began play in 1998.

If the trend holds, it will be the third consecutive year that scoring has declined in the AL, and right now it's more than a run per game lower than the 5.30 total teams combined for in 2000.

The same thing is happening in the National League, where teams average just 4.11 runs per game this season. If that continues, it will be the sixth consecutive year scoring has declined.

But there is another matter that never got the attention it deserved during the gushing over the juice-inflated power totals that escalated during the late 1990s and ran into the early 2000s. Hitters weren't the only ones seeking an edge.

Roger Clemens is on trial now in Washington after prosecutors allege he committed perjury before the House Government Reform Committee in 2008, when asked if he had used performance-enhancing drugs during his career.

Clemens said he didn't.

Other people, including his former trainer, said he did.

Jury selection began Wednesday and the trial could be one of the all-timers. Both sides are expected to call some of the top names in baseball to testify that Clemens either A) cheated; or B) got big and strong through exercise and a sensible diet.

Clemens' good friend Andy Pettitte is among those expected to take the stand. Pettitte has admitted using PEDs during his career, and in a statement to Congress said Clemens told him about his use of human growth hormone.

That prompted Clemens' famous (infamous?) statement that Pettitte had "misremembered" their conversation.

A conviction could cost Clemens what would have been an automatic selection to the Hall of Fame, although I would suppose he'd have bigger things to worry about if found guilty.

While we wait for the legal machinery to finish its work, here are some numbers to chew on.

While with the Houston Astros in 2004, Clemens won his seventh and final Cy Young Award after going 18-4 with a 2.98 earned run average and 218 strikeouts -- all this at age 41, with a body that looked like a Winnebago.

That's some diet.

Even if Clemens beats the perjury rap, he'll have a tough time convincing anyone that he doesn't owe a fair part of his success to chemistry.

However it plays out though, baseball is moving on from its steroid era. The game is being played now more like it was intended to be.

Major League Baseball was never supposed to be the equivalent of slow-pitch softball, and 41-year-old pitchers aren't supposed to put up the kind of numbers Clemens did in 2004. The game just doesn't work that way, or at least it didn't until chemists began to work their magic.

The Clemens' trial will probably be the last-gasp for an era in the game everyone would just as soon forget. Hallowed hitting records that stood for decades went up in smoke like parched brush land. Pitchers got caught up in it too.

Yeah, it's a lot harder to score runs now and you don't see pitchers still throwing 98 miles an hour as they close in on Social Security eligibility. After baseball "misremembered" what it is supposed to be, some sanity has returned to the grande olde game.

If that's the price of cleanliness, it's a bargain.