Martinez back in saddle
NEW YORK -- In his previous two starts, we saw how Pedro Martinez pitches when his throat is sore, his brow feverish, and his stomach unsettled. Last night, we saw anew how Martinez pitches when his pride is wounded, and his health restored.
On a team that defines itself by the cowboy code -- however quaint that may be in 2003 -- Martinez showed himself to be one tough vaquero last night in the Bronx, where the Red Sox left spur marks all over New York backsides in a 9-3 stomping of the first-place Yankees that cut the margin between the teams in the American League East to 2 1/2 games.
"I told my boys, my family, and friends here in New York, `Hey, look out,' the way I saw him on the plane when we came here," designated hitter and head cheerleader David Ortiz said. "I knew he was going to be good today. I knew he would be the Petey everybody knows."
When the Yankees left Boston last Sunday, that advantage had been 5 1/2 games and Martinez, who had been unable to protect a three-run lead in a 10-7 loss last Saturday, was stung by the suggestion he had failed to rise to the occasion for his team.
"When it counted the most," Martinez had said sarcastically the next day, parroting a line that had appeared in that morning's newspaper, "I let my team down."
He was hurt, and he was angry, which has been his basic MO for much of this season, a condition that has even his employers wondering why a man with so much could be so miserable. (Of course, they've wondered the same thing about the team's other superstars, Manny Ramirez and Nomar Garciaparra, but that's a story for another day).
For months, he's had less to say than the characters in Kevin Costner's new Western, which puts him on a conversational par with tumbleweed. He has let his body of work speak for itself, which for the Yankees last night meant that the Bronx was a town without pity.
Six innings, four hits, a walk, a run, nine whiffs, no letup. Like his route-going, 128-pitch performance against Anaheim a month ago, when he was irked at being described as a six-inning pitcher, Martinez's performance was fueled by a malice manufactured from within.
"Call it what you want," interim pitching coach Dave Wallace said, "but Pedro works on generating things that will give him a competitive edge."
His bout with pharyngitis, which had morphed into a touch of strep throat, had cost him a start against the A's, left him listless (but effective) against the Mariners, but was still taking its toll last week against the Yankees, when he was whacked around early and couldn't find the energy to offer much resistance.
"It's hard as a pitcher not to feel good and pitch," Ortiz said. "Especially a guy like Petey."
There were no such impediments last night against a Yankee lineup that was missing leading hitter Derek Jeter (strained ribcage muscle) and contained a beatup Alfonso Soriano (thumb) and Jason Giambi (name a body part).
Staked to a 3-0 lead before he even came out of the visitors' dugout, Martinez set down the first eight Yankees in order before Enrique Wilson, Ramirez's dinner date in Boston last week, swatted a double into the right-field corner with two outs in the third. By that time, the outcome was a foregone conclusion: The Sox were ahead, 8-0, and Martinez had struck out four successive Yankees -- Nick Johnson, Bernie Williams, Giambi, and Jorge Posada.
"He was stronger physically going into this game than the last one," manager Grady Little said. "You could see it. One hundred percent? I would say that. A couple of days ago you could see that he was going to give us a good show tonight. You could see a lot of life in that little body."
Martinez took a two-hit shutout into the sixth, when he gave up consecutive doubles to Wilson and Soriano in what would prove to be his last inning.
Even with a big lead, he was the Man in the Iron Mask, except for two moments: The first came when Ramirez flipped the ball into the stands after running into the left-field fence to make a terrific catch in the fourth, apparently not realizing it was only the second out of the inning. Martinez laughed into his glove after that one. The second came when Wilson leaned down and golfed a pitch he had no business hitting into right for his second double; he's become a regular Pedro Killer (.500, 10 for 20 in his career).
"If we had Wilson hitting 1 through 9, we might have had a shot against him," said Yankees manager Joe Torre.
Instead, Torre had to make do with the bigger names on his $180 million roster, and that was hardly enough.
Martinez's take on his performance? He rode off into the night without a word. Hi-Yo, Plata.
