By The Associated Press

FORT MYERS, Fla. – Matt Clement’s final outing of spring training was his best – and he showed the Red Sox they might not miss Pedro Martinez and Derek Lowe.

Clement allowed one run on two hits in five innings and Jason Varitek and Kevin Youkilis homered in Boston’s 6-4 win over the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

The Red Sox lost Martinez and Lowe to free agency and added Clement, David Wells and Wade Miller. Wells, scheduled to pitch the season opener Sunday at the New York Yankees, had a 7.94 ERA in 17 innings. Miller is expected to start the season on the disabled list and to return in May.

Clement, who played last season for the Chicago Cubs, had an 0-2 record and 5.54 ERA in his other four spring starts. But he felt he built up his arm strength and improved his pitches and is ready for the second game against the Yankees.

“Spring went well. I think I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish and now it doesn’t mean squat if you can’t do it when the season starts,” he said. “I don’t see any reason why I can’t pitch the same way I’ve pitched here.”

He doesn’t feel an extra burden by trying to replace Martinez or Lowe.

“I put high expectations and high goals on myself,” said Clement, who struck out five and walked none. “So I feel like I don’t need to put any extra pressure on. I know the expectations are there.”

Nor is he intimidated by making his Red Sox debut in Yankee Stadium, a place he’s never been.

“I’m excited just to go there,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to getting to pitch there and getting to be a part of this rivalry.”

After Clement left the game, Tampa Bay tied it 2-2 on Josh Phelps’ homer off Matt Mantei.

Boston then scored four runs in the sixth off former Red Sox pitcher Casey Fossum on Kevin Millar’s RBI single and Youkilis’ three-run homer, his second of the exhibition season.

Youkilis will start the season as a backup to third baseman Bill Mueller. He also has played first base this spring.

“It’s our responsibility to find him enough at-bats without getting somebody hurt where he can be productive here and not go backwards,” Boston manager Terry Francona said.

Sox trade pitcher Kim to Colorado

FORT MYERS, Fla. – The Boston Red Sox have traded right-handed relief pitcher Byung-Hyun Kim to the Colorado Rockies, agreeing to pay most of his salary and calling the two-year, $10 million deal they gave him in 2004 “a mistake.”

Kim was sent Wednesday to the Rockies for left-handed pitcher Chris Narveson, 23, who was optioned to Triple-A Pawtucket, and catcher Charles Johnson, who was immediately designated for assignment and released.

The Red Sox will pick up almost all of Kim’s $6 million salary, general manager Theo Epstein said.

“We certainly made a mistake and I take responsibility for that,” Epstein said of the two-year, $10 million contract Kim signed before the 2004 season. “It’s just a mystery what happened to this guy.”

Epstein noted that in 2003, Kim made contributions to the team’s playoff run and was at a loss to say what happened to him in 2004.

“I’m not so sure (success) would have happened to him in Boston,” he said. “He was crying for a change of scenery.”

Epstein said Kim, when informed of the trade, apologized for not doing better.

Kim missed time with the flu this spring and has allowed four earned runs in 6 2-3 innings during the exhibition season. All the while, he has been bombarded with rumors that Boston would try to unload his $6 million salary, or part of it.

“I heard many stories about the trades this offseason but it’s nothing I can control,” he said last week, “but I know the general manager and manager and all the teammates still trust in me to help out the team.”

Kim, a native of South Korea, was acquired from Arizona on May 29, 2003 in the trade that sent Shea Hillenbrand to the Diamondbacks. He went 6-4 with 16 saves and a 2.28 ERA in 42 outings after being named Boston’s closer July 1. He did not allow an earned run in his final 13 regular season appearances.

But he lost the job in the playoffs after allowing the tying run to reach base in the ninth inning of Boston’s loss in the first-round opener against Oakland. Then, during player introductions for Game 3 of the AL division series in 2003 at Fenway Park, he was booed and made an obscene gesture at the crowd. He later apologized.

Even so, the Red Sox re-signed him to a two-year, $10 million contract in the offseason. Then he went 2-1 with a 6.73 ERA for Boston and was at Triple-A Pawtucket from May 11 to Sept. 21.

The former Arizona closer blew two ninth-inning saves at Yankee Stadium in the 2001 World Series. But he made the All-Star team with the Diamondbacks in 2002, when he had a career-high 36 saves.

In 299 career appearances, Kim is 31-28 with 86 saves and a 3.37 earned run average. He has allowed 315 hits and 176 runs, 157 of them earned. He has struck out 455 batters and walked 176.

Kim has four saves in 11 postseason appearances with Arizona and Boston.

AP-ES-03-30-05 1916EST