|
“DIARY OF A WINNER”
|
THE ALL STARS
& PEDRO'S HISTORIC YEAR September 21, 1999 ... From the moment he decided to commit six years of his life to the Red Sox, Pedro Martinez refused to be cast in the shadow of Roger Clemens. Tonight, before a crowd of 27,799 at Fenway Park that was on its feet chanting "MVP" for the slender Red Sox ace, Pedro erased Clemens's name from another line in the Red Sox record book, and this one was no mere footnote to history. With 12 strikeouts in a 3-0 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays, Pedro shattered Clemens's season record for strikeouts by a Red Sox pitcher. The Sox' sixth win in a row matched their season-best streak while reducing their magic number for a playoff berth to 8 and the A's kept it at 8 with a 5-3 victory over the Twins. With 11 games left, the Sox, who have won 9 of 11 and 21 of 26, remained three games behind the division-leading Yankees, 3-1 winners over the White Sox. Pedro broke Clemens's record of 291, set in 1988, by striking out shortstop Tony Batista for the first out of the third inning. Pedro used the same ball for the next hitter, Willis Otanez, and when Otanez fouled a pitch into the rooftop box seats, club publicist Kevin Shea retrieved the ball from a spectator after doing some quick negotiating. Pedro struck out Homer Bush to start the eighth for his 299th strikeout, then walked the next batter, Shannon Stewart, and hit Brian McRae in the knee to put two runners on. Shawn Green then hit a one-hop shot to the right of second baseman Jose Offerman, who made a difficult stop and backhanded flip to Nomar Garciaparra for an inning-ending double play. With Rod Beck warming up in the bullpen and the crowd calling for Pedro, the Sox ace emerged for the ninth inning and struck out Carlos Delgado, the cleanup hitter, on three pitches for No. 300. That ball Pedro rolled into the Red Sox dugout. In 1997, when he won the National League Cy Young Award for the Montreal Expos, Pedro struck out 305. Pedro (22-4) lowered his major league-leading ERA to 2.11 with his 11th career shutout, and his 300 strikeouts are 116 more than the runner-up in the American League, Anaheim's Chuck Finley. At least as astonishing is this: Pedro, who walked two last night, has just 37 bases on balls in 204 1/3 innings. His strikeout- to-walk differential of 263 is believed to be the largest since Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax struck out 382 while walking 71 in 1965, a differential of 311. Pedro came closest to losing his shutout in the fourth, when Brian McRae walked and Shawn Green blooped a single to center, McRae speeding to third. But Delgado popped out, and Pedro struck out Segui and Fletcher, both former teammates in Montreal. Fletcher was his catcher with the Expos and came into the game batting .412 (7 for 17) against Pedro. McRae would be the only Blue Jay to advance as far as third. Homer Bush's infield hit in the third and Segui's double off the top of the center-field wall in the seventh were Toronto's only other hits. Offerman, who had two of Boston's 11 hits, triggered a two-run rally in the third when he hit a single through the left side. After Offerman stole second, Damon Buford bunted a pitch down the first- base line that was fielded by pitcher Pat Hentgen, who threw to an unoccupied first-base bag as Offerman scored and Buford took second. Troy O'Leary brought home Buford with the first of his three singles. Nomar Garciaparra singled to open the fifth, sped to third on O'Leary's single, and scored the final Sox run on Mike Stanley's sacrifice fly. Pedro now has 18 games this season in which he has struck out 10 or more. He's done it 53 times in his career, 26 times for the Sox. When the Jays made it through the sixth without a whiff, it was only the second time in 55 innings that Pedro had failed to register a strikeout. He threw 120 pitches, 81 for strikes. |
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
 |
|
