Roger Clemens and Pete Rose burst into the news on the same day last week. Can Barry Bonds be far behind?

Clemens, Bonds and Rose are Major League Baseball’s triumvirate from hell. Clemens, seven-time winner of the Cy Young award, was indicted by a federal grand jury, charged with lying to a grand jury about his use of performance-enhancing drugs. Bonds is scheduled to go on trial next March on a similar charge.

The Cincinnati Reds have received permission from Commissioner Bud Selig to honor Rose, who has been banned from baseball since 1989, at Great American Ball Park next month on the 25th anniversary of his breaking Ty Cobb’s career record for hits. The event will mark the first time Rose will appear on the Reds’ home field since he was banned.

Clemens, Bonds and Rose have a lot in common, including their superstar but disgraced careers, but the trait that links them in their ignominy is the cocky arrogance that prevented them from acknowledging, in a timely manner, the validity of the charges against them.

Clemens and Bonds have maintained their innocence in the use of steroids. Since they haven’t been convicted of anything, we should probably accept the American ideal that one is innocent until proven guilty. But darn, the circumstantial evidence is just too great against them.

The same was true with Rose. For 15 years he denied that he bet on baseball games, and then in 2004 he wrote a book and admitted that he bet on baseball games. Had he admitted it in 1989 I believe he would be in baseball and the Hall of Fame today.

Bonds may yet escape a guilty verdict. I once predicted that he would wind up in prison before he was in the Hall of Fame, and there’s still a chance of that happening. But if Bonds’ steadfastly loyal former trainer, Greg Anderson, continues to refuse to testify against him, Bonds could escape conviction.

The evidence against Clemens, especially the Andy Pettitte affidavit in which the pitcher says Clemens told him he used illegal drugs, could spell trouble for one of the greatest pitchers of all time.

But whatever happens in the Clemens case, he has only himself to blame. He didn’t have to be in this position.

Intent on convincing the public that he did not get drug injections from his former trainer, Brian McNamee, as McNamee told the Mitchell investigators, Clemens was as noisy as he could be on whatever public stages were available.

Clemens was so loud in his denials that his words reached the ears of the oversight committee of the House of Representatives. Still the committee wasn’t set on holding a hearing.

“Neither Waxman or Davis wanted to have a hearing,” said a Washington insider, referring to the committee chairman, Henry Waxman, Democrat of California, and the ranking member, Tom Davis, Republican of Virginia. “They demanded that they have it.”

He referred to Clemens and his lawyers, Rusty Hardin of Houston and Lanny Breuer of Washington.

In a near coincidence that would have linked Clemens and Rose, Hardin, the very vocal Texas attorney, approached John Dowd, a Washington lawyer, about serving as Clemens’ attorney for Washington matters.

Dowd, who investigated Rose for baseball in 1989, recalled that about a month or so before the hearing Hardin approached him about representing Clemens. Dowd, however, declined the job.

Asked why, he said in a telephone interview, “I didn’t have control of the case. Hardin was unwilling to relinquish control. I’m not interested in working for Hardin.”

Dowd saw bad days ahead for Clemens, “It’s a terrible, terrible thing that happened,” he said. “It just shouldn’t have happened. It’s a shame that he ever opened his mouth.”

Dowd always felt that it was a shame that it took Rose 15 years to open his mouth about his betting. Although some people criticized Dowd at the time for his Rose investigation, he did a solid, well documented job and left no doubt what Rose did. That’s why Rose would have been smart to have acknowledged his guilt and moved on to a better life, including likely entry into the Hall of Fame.

His appearance in Cincinnati next month will surely create a new salvo of cries for Rose’s reinstatement, which is why Selig’s decision to make the exception was most likely a mistake. In 1999, Selig allowed Rose to participate in the all-century team promotion at the All-Star game, and he received the biggest ovation.

“That was a big mistake; this is a bigger one,” said former Commissioner Fay Vincent, who was deputy commissioner when A. Bartlett Giamatti banned Rose. “This is going to cause Bud terrific agita. People are going to ask him does this mean he’s coming back.”

It does not mean that, but people don’t need more than that to think this is the first step on the road to reinstatement. Selig, however, has no thought of allowing Rose to return.

The Reds, however, swayed Selig by emphasizing that it was an important moment in the club’s history, and that it would be only a one-shot event. The problem, as others see it, is that players banned from baseball are not permitted to use team facilities, and Rose’s appearance at Great American Ball Park will violate that rule.

“When the keeper of the rules breaks the rules,” Dowd said, “there are no rules. It’s just a terrible thing. The rules mean nothing under this commissioner.”

METS PITCH AND HIT SHUTOUTS

Pathetic was the word Jerry Manuel used. “This is pathetic,” the Mets’ manager said. “We gotta do better.”

The Mets had just lost a 3-2 decision to the Houston Astros on one swing of Carlos Lee’s bat that wiped out the Mets’ 2-0 lead. The Mets did not score again. Two runs are about the Mets’ maximum these days.

“We have to do more offensively,” Manuel said. “It was a very poor performance on our part offensively. We put good players out there but they don’t perform. Nobody’s driving in any runs. We don’t have any production. You always feel that whatever they have done historically you will get. But we’re not hitting at all and that’s too bad because we’ve put together some good outings.”

Before the season, the Mets usual critics questioned their starting pitching, saying the team lacked sufficient starters to contend, maybe even to compete. They needed another starter, maybe two starters. The Mets were criticized for not signing one or two pitchers who were available as free agents.

But here we are with only six weeks left in the season, the Mets are falling or have fallen out of the division and wild-card races and no one can blame it on the starting pitching. The starters have been phenomenal, namely Johan Santana, R.A. Dickey and Jonathan Niese.

Mike Pelfrey had a solid first half and recently, with a 1.64 earned run average in his last three starts, has looked as if he is returning to the level of pitching he displayed then. Hisanori Takahashi also contributed strong stretches of starting.

The most interesting and impressive aspect of the Mets’ pitching has been the staff’s penchant for throwing shutouts. The Mets lead the major leagues with 18.

Earlier this month the Mets pitched two 1-0 shutouts in the space of three games, including one against the Philadelphia Phillies, the National League’s second most prolific run scorer over whom the Mets earlier in the season had three successive shutouts in a three-game sweep.

However, the won-lost records of the starters don’t reflect all of that nifty pitching. That’s because the team’s offense, as the manager said, has been pathetic, not to mention putrid.

In 15 of his 27 starts (through Sunday) Santana has allowed no runs or one run in pitching at least six innings. He has been the winning pitcher in nine of those games but emerged with no decision in the other six.

Dickey has permitted no more than two runs in six or more innings in 10 starts and has a 5-1 record in those games but also has four no-decisions. In 13 starts in which he has pitched at least six innings and given up a maximum of three runs, he has a 7-2 record with four no-decisions.

Niese has pitched at least six innings and allowed two runs or fewer 10 times; he has a 6-1 record with three no-decisions in those games. He has pitched six or more innings and has permitted three runs or fewer 13 times; he has a 7-3 record with three no-decisions in those games.

He has pitched three other games in which he has given up only one run each in 5 to 5 2/3 innings, winding up with one win and two no-decisions.

The Mets just don’t score enough runs to support their pitchers and give them a chance to win more games. They are 13th in the National League in runs scored and 14th in batting average and on-base percentage.

Their run differential is not much over .500, 501 runs scored, 480 given up through Sunday, and the only reason they are on the plus side is the effectiveness of their pitchers. Their 3.61 earned run average is the league’s fifth lowest, not far off San Diego’s league-leading 3.27.

Then there is the matter of one-run games. The Mets have a 17-25 record, second worst in the league. But what, if any, correlation is there between leading the league, or the majors, in shutouts and getting to the playoffs?

In the past 10 years, there has been a much stronger correlation in the American League than in the National. In those 10 years, five A.L. teams that were shutout leaders have won division titles and three others have been wild cards. Among the 10 N.L. shutout leaders, three have won division titles and none has been a wild card. The 2006 Mets, who tied with Houston for most shutouts, are the only N.L. shutout leader since 2002 to reach the playoffs.

On a major league-wide basis, two teams that led the majors in shutouts won division titles and two won wild-card spots.

STAN AND SCOTT

Stan Kasten, the Washington Nationals’ president, likes the team’s acquisition of Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper as the first selections in the last two June drafts, but he’s ready to give someone else a chance.

“I’m looking forward to never having it again,” Kasten said of the No. 1 pick.

The Nationals paid abundantly for Strasburg ($15.1 million) and Harper ($9.9 million), and, Kasten said, “We’re happy with our deals. We’re happy with what we’ve added. Whether it’s sensible is to be debated at another time.”

Until recently, teams could not draft first two years in a row because the leagues alternated each year, with the worst team in each league going first. But in 2005 the format was changed to eliminate the alternating system and base the order of selection on the won-lost records of all 30 teams.

Maybe next year someone else will have the pleasure of dealing with Scott Boras, the agent who represented Strasburg and Harper. But Kasten said he and Boras go back a long way.

“You are aware of the numerous and lucrative deals I’ve done with Scott over the years,” Kasten said, asked about the difficulties of dealing with the agent. “We do what we have to.”

Discussing Boras’ negotiating style, Kasten added, “You know he’s going to have supreme command of all the actual facts. He’s going to be articulate and creative in presenting his facts in a light most favorable to him. But there’s expertise on our side of the table. It comes down to what is the team willing to do and what is the player willing to accept. You start out that both sides want the same thing.”

Both sides also start out knowing their negotiations will go down to the midnight deadline of the designated day.

“It shouldn’t be that way,” Kasten said, “but that’s how it has become with the deadline. I think it has to be changed. It has now become the practice clearly to do it, which means we have institutionalized taking young kids at the prime of their development and putting them on the shelf for a whole season.”