Clement catching on quickly

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Whipping winds, slight drizzle, and a 57-degree game-time temperature last night gave the feel of an October evening in the Back Bay.

But, the swaying palm trees, and a 21-pitch first inning by Matt Clement against a lean Twins lineup, served as a reminder this was March.

Clement threw 35 pitches, 21 for strikes, over two innings in his Red Sox debut and the team's spring training opener, a 4-3 win against Minnesota before 7,589 at City of Palms Park. He allowed one run on two hits, a walk, and a wild pitch.

All that is of debatable significance this early in the season. What mattered to Clement was how much catcher Jason Varitek challenged him with his pitches -- namely a two-seam sinker and four-seam cutter. With Clement, everything begins with his slider.

Varitek, Clement said, wants him to use his sinker and cutter more and to both sides of the plate. The two focused predominantly on locating those pitches last night, leaving offspeed pitches -- Clement threw just three -- for another day.

"You can see he's got lightning-type stuff," Varitek said.

Clement, meanwhile, came away enamored of Varitek.

"He's everything everybody says about him," Clement said. "All the accolades. You could just see the way he's using my pitches that I've never used before, making me use them early."

Clement amended that thought, explaining that he's thrown everything before, but not as frequently and not to both sides of the plate.

"I've always been vanilla," he said. "Sinker to one side of the plate, cutter to the other. I want to branch out."

Clement bounced a sinker in the first inning for a wild pitch that allowed the Twins to score their first run. He came back to get Armando Rios looking for a strikeout on a sinker away in the second inning.

"Probably what I'm most satisfied with is I pitched these two innings without doing what I didn't want to do, rely on my slider," Clement said.

The more Clement does that, he said, the better a pitcher he will become.

Let's play two
Northeastern University (1:05 p.m.) and Boston College (7:05 p.m.) face the Sox today in seven-inning games. Tim Wakefield will start against NU, Mike Timlin against BC. Manager Terry Francona's goal is to get all 58 players in camp into a game by the end of the doubleheader.

Of note: David Ortiz will hit third and Manny Ramirez fourth in the afternoon game. Doug Mirabelli will catch Wakefield, and Kelly Shoppach will catch the nightcap. Hanley Ramirez will start at shortstop in the second game. Matt Mantei will make his Sox debut in relief against the Eagles.

Signed up
The club announced the signing of 13 players with zero to three years of service time: pitchers Abe Alvarez, Juan Cedeno, Manny Delcarmen, Mark Malaska, Anastacio Martinez, Luis Mendoza, Anibal Sanchez, and Chris Smith; catcher Kelly Shoppach; infielders Ramirez and Kevin Youkilis; and outfielders Adam Hyzdu and Adam Stern. Everyone on the 40-man roster is under contract . . . Bill Mueller ran sprints in the outfield yesterday afternoon . . . Catcher Shawn Wooten, a nonroster invitee, homered in the bottom of the eighth . . . Jeremi Gonzalez, formerly of the Devil Rays, pitched a scoreless fourth for the Sox and picked up the win . . . The showcasing of Byung Yung Kim began last night. Kim pitched a 1-2-3 third inning. He threw one pitch that sailed over batter Michael Ryan's head to the backstop. "I thought he was pretty good," Francona said. "His ball had some movement, some life to it." . . . Denney Tomori, who has pitched professionally in Japan since 1987, debuted last night on this side of the Pacific. Summoned to begin the ninth with a 4-1 lead, Tomori surrendered two runs, one earned, on three hits and got the save . . . Perhaps you saw photos of the players, coaches, and ownership on stage at the White House Wednesday and wondered where general manager Theo Epstein was. Epstein was seated next to Larry Lucchino's wife, Stacy, in the first row in front of the stage. Epstein said he just wanted to give the attention to those he thought deserved it.