NEW YORK -- It's time to stop the morality play concerning Roger Clemens. As it was Sunday night, after the broken-bat incident with Mike Piazza, the reaction to Clemens is too overdramatized and tends to taint what he does as a clear, future first-ballot Hall of Fame pitcher.

Is Clemens a tough guy who pitches inside? Yes. Would Pedro Martinez, one of the only other pitchers who pitches inside, hit Piazza, who likes to dive over the plate to hit pitches? Yes. It's part of the game and a territorial matter for pitchers like Clemens and Martinez.

Mike Boddicker, Clemens' former teammate, once said they are just games for other pitchers, but every fifth day is Texas vs. Oklahoma for Clemens. He has a football mentality and comes out smoking for each game. Sometimes, his emotions are part of the problem. Clemens needed to harness them in Game 2 of the Subway Series on Sunday and get through his emotional state after the volatile, first-inning incident, and he did so in brilliant fashion.

Game 2 was the fifth time in 16 postseason starts that Clemens has not allowed a run. In his last two starts, here's his line: 17 innings, three hits, no runs, two walks, 24 strikeouts. Absolutely dominant.

Clemens was not going to intimidate Piazza. He also wasn't going to be affected by the whole saga with Piazza. If there was going to be any intimidation, it would have come when Clemens broke Piazza's bat and busted him inside again on the next pitch. In fact, his first four pitches buried Piazza inside. And they were all great pitches. None of them were up and in.

Clemens had incredible command of his fastball. The Mets took the right approach, trying to take some pitches. But he got to an 0-2 count on Edgardo Alfonzo and blew him away. He later buried Robin Ventura with the split-fingered fastball. He got Lenny Harris with the split after a long at-bat.

Then, they knew he was just going to throw fastballs over the plate. The Mets tried to cope with them, but Clemens started throwing two-seamers and getting easy groundballs. There was nothing that was going to happen that was going to move Clemens.

The difference between Game 2 and his last outing against the Mets on July 8 was he rediscovered both his command and his split. When he was in Toronto, Clemens had the split moving straight down. He lost that movement the last couple of years. The pitch had been moving off to the side, acting more like a slurve. It's a tremendous advantage for Clemens and the Yankees that he has the split back to go with the command of his fastball, which hit 98 on the radar gun Sunday.

How did the Mets respond to Clemens' performance? They still came back. They were never going to hit Clemens. But as soon as he was out of the game, they rung up five runs against Jeff Nelson and Mariano Rivera. Although Piazza didn't get any hits off Clemens, he still homered off Nelson. Ventura swung the bat well and is on pitches, and so is Todd Zeile. Jay Payton's homer off Rivera is a great confidence boost.

The Mets leave Sunday's game believing they are still very much in the Series. They will go to Flushing to work out at Shea Stadium on Monday thinking they are starting to hit, they will beat El Duque, and then Bobby Jones will beat David Cone to make it a best-of-three series. The Mets aren't fazed by a 2-0 deficit. They were down 3-0 in the NLCS last year against Atlanta and almost won it.

If the Mets can win two games at Shea Stadium, one of the most intriguing scenarios would be coming back to Yankee Stadium with the Yankees up 3-2 and with Clemens having the chance to clinch the Series. Then maybe his greatness would no longer be overshadowed.