Roger Clemens’s Son, Kody, Earned a Strikeout Unlike Any His Dad Ever Had

When a game gets out of hand, the Phillies are the only team that can put a position player on the mound and have that guy be the son of a Hall of Fame-caliber pitcher. 

But that doesn’t mean that he’ll pitch like his dad. 

Kody Clemens is an infielder with the Phillies. His dad is Roger Clemens, the seven-time Cy Young winner who’d be in the Hall of Fame if not for the whole steroid thing. Roger was known for having one of the most electric fastballs of his era. But when Kody took the mound at the end of a Phillies blowout on Monday night, he wasn’t exactly throwing gas. 

Philadelphia manager Rob Thomson turned to Clemens to get the final two outs of the eighth inning with the team trailing 13–4 and Clemens struck out the first batter he faced. But Kody’s dad never had a strikeout like this one. 

After getting ahead 0–2 on Michael Busch, Clemens froze him with a pitch in the upper corner of the zone that clocked in at a blazing 56.7 mph. 

That was actually the second strikeout the younger Clemens had picked up as a major league pitcher. He also saw action in seven games as a pitcher for the Tigers last season, striking out—believe it or not—Shohei Ohtani with a 68 mph called strike. 

Roger Clemens gave all his sons names starting with K as a nod to his ability to rack up strikeouts. Slowly but surely, Kody is living up to the name.