Clemens Is Too Much for Angels : Baseball: He overpowers them in 3-0 victory. Abbott again gets no support and his record falls to 2-5.

BOSTON —  Roger Clemens’ four-seam fastball was overpowering, his two-seam fastball low and sneaky, his slider vicious and his forkball mystifying. “I didn’t even know he had a forkball,” Von Hayes said.

The result of Clemens’ mastery was almost predictable. Facing the minimum 18 batters through the first six innings and retiring the last nine without interruption, Clemens held the Angels to four hits Friday in a 3-0 Red Sox victory before 33,254 at chilly Fenway Park. It was his second consecutive shutout and third consecutive complete game.

Clemens (5-3) struck out six, increasing his league-leading total to 61. He walked only one batter--Hayes, who was erased on a double play in the fourth inning--and went to a three-ball count on only one other batter, Junior Felix, in the fourth. Clemens has won his last six decisions against the Angels and has a 1.58 earned-run average in that span; he has bested Jim Abbott (2-5) the last four times they have met, since Abbott and the Angels won, 5-0, at Anaheim Stadium on May 17, 1989.

“Abbie’s pitched pretty well against us,” said Clemens, who leads the major leagues with six complete games and ranks among the leaders with a 1.64 ERA. “I’m not sure how many times I’ve matched up against him, but it’s always a battle.”

The opener of the Angels’ nine-game trip was never really much of a battle.

“There was not much we could do tonight,” Angel Manager Buck Rodgers said. “They beat us. They outpitched us and outhit us. We flat-out got beat.”

Given a few opportunities to do something for Abbott, for whom they have scored four runs in his last 35 2/3 innings, they did nothing at all.

“He threw a good game, but he’s not unbeatable,” Angel catcher Ron Tingley said of Clemens. “Against a guy like that, when you don’t get a whole lot of chances, you’ve got to convert the ones you get.”

The Angels’ best chance was in the seventh inning. Boston’s lead was 1-0 when singles by Luis Polonia and Hayes gave the Angels runners on first and second with no one out. Next up was the switch-hitting Felix, who ranks second in the American League with 29 runs batted in and was hitting .319 left-handed.

Felix struck out.

Hubie Brooks then popped to second and Alvin Davis flied to center field to end the inning.

The Red Sox added a run in the seventh inning on a double by rookie Bob Zupcic and a single by Tony Pena, and a run in the eighth on a towering home run to left field by Ellis Burks.

“Hubie’s struggling a little bit, and I’m not going to sacrifice (bunt) my RBI guy, Felix,” Rodgers said of his seventh-inning strategy. “You’ve got to let him go at (Clemens). . . . We tried to hit and run, and we tried to do a couple of things. We tried to grind out, scrape out a run, and when we got a chance my hottest hitter’s up at the plate, and I’m not going to bunt with my hottest hitter.”

Abbott, although a victim of feeble offensive support, didn’t help himself in the second inning.

A full-count walk to Jack Clark and a single to right field put runners on first and second, and with Tom Brunansky at the plate, Angel shortstop Gary DiSarcina broke to the bag at second for a pickoff throw. With Clark well off the bag, Abbott could have picked him off, but instead he threw home. He walked Brunansky, loading the bases for Zupcic, who produced Boston’s first run with a grounder that forced Brunansky at second base.

“I didn’t pick up the ‘daylight play’ in time,” Abbott said. “It was probably my fault that I didn’t pick it up. I saw DiSar go to the bag, but we already made the commitment to go to the plate. It was a smart play by him. . . . One little mistake here or there against a pitcher of (Clemens’) caliber, and you end up on the wrong side of the decision.”

Abbott has been the loser both times the Angels have been shut out this season, walking in the decisive run in the ninth inning April 29 at Toronto on the previous occasion. Although his ERA is 2.57 and he leads the Angels’ staff with two complete games, he is 1-4 in his last five starts.

“I’m just picking the wrong days to pitch,” he said. “I’m coming up against some pretty good pitchers, and they’re pitching some pretty good ballgames.”