Welcome Home, Pedro

I don't think I have ever NOT rooted for the Red Sox. I never imagined anything but. Well, there's a first time for everything, right? Might as well be tonight. But I never thought I'd see the day Pedro pitched in Fenway from the visitor's dugout.

There's too much to say in too little time. I'll need to reorganize some bolts in my head. In the meantime, a piece from the early days.

And to the HOFer Peter Gammons: Get Well Soon!

Me Llamo Pedro. 5/28/02

Pedro Martinez. Simply put, the greatest pitcher of my generation. Perhaps the greatest pitcher of any generation. The greatest pitcher I have ever seen pitch. Maybe the greatest pitcher anyone has ever seen pitch. There’s no one else like him.

Pedro is pure dominance. No one else in the league has the nasty stuff he has with that kind of command. He is the epitome of the perfect pitcher. Randy Johnson’s fastball, Trevor Hoffman’s changeup, Kerry Wood’s curveball, Greg Maddux’s control, Curt Schilling’s guts. Throw them all together, and out comes Pedro. When he is on, he is a no-hitter waiting to happen every night out. There is just no one better. In May 2002, against the Seattle Mariners, one of the best teams in the league, he struck on the side in the first inning on nine pitches. Mark McLemore was the only one to make contact, hitting a foul ball. After the game he said, “His ball hit my bat.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

His mid-90’s four-seam fastball paints corners, in perfect locations. Outside corner, inside corner, high and tight, low and away. Every one of these fastballs seems perfect. Jason Varitek never moves his glove. If he misses, it’s as if he meant to miss, just biding his time, setting you up for the next pitch, the back-breaking, knee-bending curveball. Not your conventional overhand curve, Pedro, with his three-quarters motion, slings it up there, with an eleven-to-seven break. Let’s just call it the “Seven-Eleven” special. He never hangs it. Right handed hitters are frozen and cant swing at it. It’s not one of those pitches that you swing and miss at. That’s typically the sign of a dominating pitch, one that hitters swing at and cant hit. Not this curveball. It’s so good that hitters cant even move the bat off their shoulders. That is, if they’re still standing in the batter’s box. If he really wants to make you look foolish, there is the best changeup of all time. The typical successful changeup is predicated on the fastball and changing the speed of the pitch. Because a right-handed hitter generally picks up the release of the ball from the left-handed pitcher faster than they would a right-handed pitcher, and vice-versa, the changeup is typically used by righties against lefties and by lefties against righties. A righty with a good fastball throwing a changeup to another righty simply allows the batter to speed up his swing. Not Pedro’s changeup. He throws it to righties and lefties. When he leaves it in the strike zone, it’s usually at the knees on the outside corner. When he throws it out of the strike zone, it has great screwball action. It’s low and away to lefties and down and in to righties. If you’re lucky, he didn’t throw it with two strikes and you simply swing and miss, live to fight another day. Or should you make contact with it, it’s either a weak grounder pulled to the proper side of the field, or a short fly to an outfielder. Unfortunately for you, he almost never throws it unless there are two strikes. At least you get to admire him from the best seats in the house: the dugout.

I’m not sure where this notion that he’s a fragile player comes from. Yeah, he misses a few starts per year. But 2001 was the first time in his career that he’s been on the disabled list for an extended period of time. From 1996 to 2000, Pedro averaged 224.3 innings and 31 starts. Assuming the typical starter in a healthy year makes 34 starts, a reasonable assumption given that there are rainouts, doubleheaders, and scratched starts for minor reasons, Pedro, relatively to a starter who is good and healthy enough to stay in a rotation for an entire year, misses 3 starts. That’s two weeks missed. Given the length of a season, that’s next to nothing and barely a blip on the radar screen. For Pedro, I’ll give him rest for those three starts and a couple more just so I can watch the possibility of perfection in those other 30.

Unlike Tom Glavine, Pedro doesn’t need the umpire’s help in expanding the strike zone. Unlike Randy Johnson, Pedro doesn’t need to overpower hitters. Unlike Greg Maddux, Pedro doesn’t need the pinpoint control. And unlike Roger Clemens, Red Sox nation feels secure in resting the hopes of a World Series title on his shoulders.

The Man shows up for big games. Maybe not games that will go down as important in history, but games that matter, at least to the die-hards. In the ‘99 season, he faced Clemens in a virtually meaningless Sunday night game in the middle of May at Yankee Stadium. The game was scoreless until the 9th inning when Trot Nixon hit a two-run homer off the admittedly great Clemens. Pedro showed up in the ninth, and though there were a couple of tense moments, got out of it. The Red Sox won 2-0. Again, the one game in May was meaningless. But it was magical, establishing Pedro as an all time favorite. We couldn’t bear to see the Red Sox lose to Clemens! He had put in so much heart and effort into that game that he might have tired out his arm. It’s for moments like that Pedro will always be better than Clemens. Clemens never would have won that game. Pedro did, and showed that he was better than Clemens in doing it.

1999 All-Star game. Completely meaningless, except it was held in Fenway Park where Ted Williams was joined in centerfield by all the All-Stars of that year in an awesome moment. Pedro was the starter. He proceeded to strike out Barry Larkin, Larry Walker, and Sammy Sosa to start the game. He struck out Mark McGwire to start the second. Matt Williams reached on an error and was thrown out trying to steal on a 3-2 curve that struck out Jeff Bagwell. If Williams wasn’t caught stealing, Pedro would have struck out Piazza. Everyone at Fenway knew it. Pedro knew it. Piazza knew it. Pedro subsequently landed on the disabled list after that start. It was expected, given the way that he came out giving everything he had to the Sox fans who haven’t had a whole lot to cheer for in the century. And what a way to close it out.

That ’99 season wasn’t over, not in the least. You want a game that means something? Game 5, American League Division Series vs. the Indians. In Game 1, Pedro got hurt after throwing four shutout innings. The Red Sox were up 2-0 when he left; they wind up losing 3-2. Pedro was deemed out of the series. Game 5, the entire bullpen was shot. For both teams. Derek Lowe had given all he had, and although his ERA may not show it, pitched great. It’s 8-8 after three innings. Cleveland has scored three, two, and three in the first three innings. Jimy Williams, a manager that never got the credit he deserved because his players didn’t respect him, realizes that if there was ever a time that the Sox needed to shut someone down, this was it. In comes Pedro. The rest, as they say, was history. Pitching with a fastball that topped out at 88 mph due to his shoulder strain, pitches six no-hit innings to close out the Indians. Sox win 12-8. When he came into the game and got through the fourth inning, the Indians knew they were done. They knew that Pedro wouldn’t let us down.

The postscript wasn’t as sweet as that Game 5 win over the Indians, as the Red Sox lost the ALCS to the Yankees in 5 games. But for one night, all of Boston and the Sox fans around the country must have felt on top of the world. After losing the first two games of the series in Yankee Stadium, mostly thanks to a very questionable call at second base where Knoblauch clearly dropped the ball yet somehow got a force and awful defense, the Sox came back to Fenway down 0-2 with Pedro on the mound against Clemens. Pedro goes on to throw a two-hitter over seven, striking out 12. Clemens, on the other hand, didn’t offer much in resistance, leaving after two innings down 4-0. Official reports say it was a tight groin. I say he was a punch drunk boxer who had had enough and threw in the towel. Way to show up, Roger.

Although the Red Sox lost the series, for one night, Pedro again gave us all he had.

We can go on and on about his stats and I can make every argument in the book about how he’s arguably the most dominant pitcher of any era. I think I will one day. But for now, that’s not what makes Pedro great as I hope this is not the last I write of Pedro. Sometimes history is too much for any one man to overcome, even a great one. But with Nomar, Manny, Trot, Varitek, Lowe, and now add Shea and Damon to the mix, maybe, just maybe Pedro has enough to get him there to show the world that he’s the best of all time. If we cant win with him, I cant imagine how we’ll ever win without him. But if any man can lead us to the Promised Land, it’s gotta be him. Nomar may well be the heart and soul of the Sox, but He will be the one to seal the deal.

His name is Pedro.