ah Mr. Martinez

I'm going to have a regular, good old fashioned update later, but first I had to post this. It's from the blog, "The Soul of Baseball" by Joe Posnanski of the KC Star, and has made a list of the top 25 pitchers who would be likely to throw a no hitter on any given day. I had re-post the section on Pedro, because, there was nothing better than waking up in the morning and knowing we had Pedro on the mound that night.

3. Pedro Martinez
No-hit quotient: 390
Did he throw a no-hitter? Yes, sort of.
Did he have any close calls? Yes.

It’s easy to confuse Pedro’s amazing games. He threw a one-hitter against the Reds in 1997, but that was the game when Bret Boone got the only single in the fifth inning.

He threw the nine-inning perfect game against San Diego in 1995, but in the 10th inning he gave up a double to Bip Roberts (the Bipper!) and so that one isn’t in the record books as a no-hitter.

There was the game in 1994 when he had a perfect game going into the eighth inning, then plunked Reggie Sanders who – and I know he regrets it to this day – charged the mound. I say Reggie regrets it, but that was the year when they called Pedro “Senor Plunk” and though I’ve never asked him (I should) I’ll bet Reggie still believes Pedro hit him on purpose even with a perfect game going.

There was the Yankees game in 1999 when he gave up one hit in the second inning (a homer to Chili Davis) and retired the next 23 in a row – 15 of them by strikeout.

You could certainly say there haven’t been many pitchers more dominant than he was that day.There was the no-hitter he took into the ninth against Tampa Bay in 2000 – he finally gave up a single to John Flaherty (he actually led off that game by hitting Gerald Williams and then he retired 24 in a row).

There was the eight innings, one hit game he threw in KC – the one hit was by Mike Sweeney and it came right after a Boston error that should have ended an inning.

I was there that night – and I cannot remember a Major League pitcher toying with a team quite the way Pedro did that night.

We don’t have nearly enough time to go into Pedro’s two hitters.