A SAD END TO A RECORD SEASON ...
The Sox beat up Pedro
in his Fenway homecoming

June 28, 2006 ... Nostalgia held sway over the Red Sox for exactly one pitch last night, an 85-mile-an-hour fastball from Pedro Martinez that Kevin Youkilis took for a called strike while flashbulbs popped, from the Monster seats to the right-field grandstands. The next pitch, Youkilis lined into center field for a base hit, the start of a night as short as any Martinez ever experienced in Fenway Park pitching for the home team.

In 94 starts for the Sox in Fenway Park, Martinez exited after three innings only twice. Tonight, pitching for his employer of the last 18 months, the New York Mets, was number three. The overheated anticipation of Martinez's return to Boston was no match for the methodical punishment inflicted upon him by the Sox. They were as dismissive of their former ace as every Sox player except close friend David Ortiz reached base against Martinez, and as anyone else they've faced in the course of a winning streak that reached 11 tonight with a 10-2 thrashing of the Mets, eight of those runs coming on Pedro's watch.

Youkilis had three hits and Gonzalez not only hit his second home run in two nights but also drew a walk for the first time in almost a month. Coco Crisp walked and scored ahead of Alex Gonzalez's two-run home run that made it 8-0 in the Sox' four-run third.  Mets manager Willie Randolph, who grumbled that Martinez not only didn't have his best stuff, but got caught up in the emotion of the night.

The Sox, who are averaging 7.9 runs a game during this streak, have won 13 of 14 games against National League teams, including consecutive routs of the NL's purported best, while climbing a season-best 19 games over .500.

Josh Beckett went 7 2/3 innings and allowed just five hits, including solo home runs to Carlos Delgado and Jose Valentin after the game was in hand.  Sox starters are 8-0 with a 2.93 ERA during in the winning streak.

Defense? The Sox made it 15 straight games without an error, tying an American League record (Texas, 1996) and drawing within one of the big-league record (St. Louis, 1992). The Mets, meanwhile, were betrayed by a costly blunder by rookie left fielder Lastings Milledge, who dropped Mike Lowell's fly ball to the Wall for a two-run error that made it 4-0 in the first. It was his second misplay in the shadow of the Monster in two nights.

Beckett, to whom Martinez had paid tribute last week as a reasonable likeness of the young Pedro, gave the Mets no chance for either Milledge or Martinez to save face en route to his 10th win, matching Detroit's Kenny Rogers for most in the American League. Last season, when Beckett won a career-best 15 games for the Marlins, he didn't win his 10th game until July 29.

A sellout throng of 36,035 gave Martinez a huge hello, a standing ovation that accompanied him on every step of that familiar walk from the bullpen after his warm-ups, but never got to say goodbye, Martinez having ducked unceremoniously down the runway to the visitors' clubhouse by the time the visitors' bullpen door opened at the start of the fourth inning, and another former Sox pitcher, Darren Oliver, trotted out to the mound.

Martinez, after yielding singles to Youkilis and Mark Loretta in the first, contributed to his demise with a bad decision on Ortiz's one-hopper back to the mound against the overshifted defense. Instead of wheeling and throwing to second for an easy double play, Martinez turned toward Youkilis running toward third, changed his mind, then decided it was too late to try to get Loretta at second, settling for an out at first.

Martinez, in a postgame analysis insisted he wasn't disappointed by the loss, that a win would not have given him as much satisfaction as the reception he got from his former hometown. But his ex-teammates, including Jason Varitek, who singled in both of his at-bats against his former batterymate, imagined it stung.