Pedro Martinez and the Changeup Unto Death

It’s hard for me to watch Pedro Martinez pitch these days without thinking about death. As someone lucky enough to have watched Pedro pitch every fifth day during his glory years in Boston, every subsequent pitch has at least a vague smell of decay to it.

Pedro has not been a Cy Young contender for half a decade now, and it could be argued that one should be accustomed to his new identity as a mediocre finesse pitcher. But they don’t demolish tombstones after mourning; death may be accepted, but it is not something to get used to and ignore like so many national crises during a twitter-quittin’.

Friday, Martinez made his first postseason start since Game 3 of the 2004 World Series, his last appearance in a Red Sox uniform. Pedro rattled off 7 shutout innings, walking none on two hits. But Pedro dwelled on his advanced age nonetheless. “Only an old goat like me can pull that trick,” Martinez said, thereby revealing the conflict between the uniquely great Pedro, and the aged, beaten down animal, subject to death, as we all are.

With his dark curls puffing out from his ears and neck, and the noonday Los Angeles sun shining directly overhead, casting a dark shadow from the brim of his Philadelphia Phillies cap over his face, Martinez appeared encircled by a black halo.

The TBS broadcast team wondered whether Pedro’s “pedigree would overcome his rust”, Martinez not having pitched in 17 days. Physicists have yet to demonstrate that reputation can add any miles per hour to the fastball, though Pedro provides at least anecdotal evidence that it does. Despite falling behind hitters all afternoon, and consistently having to come in with a fastball not reaching 90 mph until the middle innings, the Dodgers’ swings were too late. The moment was past. Never to be recovered.

Former Red Sox teammate Manny Ramirez, a career 6 for 36 with 16 strike outs against Pedro, numbers mostly compiled when Pedro was an immortal and Manny an Indian, lead off the second inning. On his first pitch to Manny, a fastball up and in, Pedro announced his presence with authority, letting Ramirez know that this was Pedro, the man who once was an angel of death to hitters. But Ramirez didn’t budge. Manny, the veteran who recaptured his prime of youth in a free agent year and was suspended for performance enhancing drug violations shortly thereafter, has himself stuck it to death, suspending the decline phase of his career; steroids are nothing if not life and youth affirming. Here, though, the two aging Dominican stars battled for the gaudiest tombstone, even after the Cooperstown plaque is assured. Pedro fell behind in the count 2-0, and was forced to come down the middle to the feared Ramirez. Manny fouled it off, defaulting on the pitch he should have owned, and on the 2-1 count Martinez jammed Ramirez up and in on an 89 mph fastball, even with the catcher set up down and away. Martinez had gotten away with missed location, as if he had the fastball and daring of his youth. He would continue to do so all afternoon, not striking out a hitter until the 5^th inning, but instead inducing feeble pop ups with only his reputation and the fear of death.

Pedro has become the sort of pitcher who throws the indiscernible. No longer is each pitch an exemplar or prototype of the ideal fastball, change and curve. Though he retains those pitches, he’s mostly a 4 seamer at 90, 91, a two seamer at 89, a cutter at 86, a sinker at 85, a je ne sais quoi at 82. (Hopefully, he has not resorted to putting snot on the ball.) Similar in type, his pitches shade and slough off into one another, differing only in their tail ends. Pedro cannot afford a straight line, the shortest distance between two points being the trip from birth to death; linearity is not what Pedro needs. Pedro must stay off-center, ec-centric, a deviation from the paradigm pitches of his past, an elliptical rather than circular orbit around the strike zone.

His sequences became more artistic as the game wore on, as Pedro protected the 1-0 Philadelphia lead, looking to take a 2-0 series advantage in the NLCS. He got his first strikeout in the 5^th, whiffing Casey Blake on his finest changeup of the afternoon, and then K’ed Belliard in the next at-bat to end the inning. In the 7^th, facing Andre Ethier, the old goat dropped in a 69 mph curve for a called strike, a 75 mph change for strike two, and then ramped up the velocity to an 89 mph fastball up and in, jamming Ethier, and generating a weak, punchless ground-out to second. Manny Ramirez then loped to the plate yet again, the perpetual tying run in a 1-0 affair. Pedro badly missed on a cutter away for ball one, overthrown, overexerted. Pedro then got Manny to pull foul a cutter middle-in, and then jammed him down and in with a fastball, which Manny chopped foul for strike two. Manny, thwarted and frustrated, lunged at a changeup which died in mid-flight and was buried in the dirt. With Pedro on to his final out, a valiant return to the postseason, James Loney drove a long fly ball to deep center; in one pitch, the work appeared undone, the highly ordered state of life and artistry dissipated into the equilibrium of the tie. But centerfielder Shane Victorino made the catch on the warning track, and Pedro, the old goat, somewhat sheepishly pumped his fist as he walked off the mound, his start finished after 7 scoreless.

The Phillies would blow the lead in the 8^th on a series of miscues, the absurdist’s vision of a meaningless life lead in error. Pedro could only watch undoing his work, erasing what had appeared set in stone.

- – - – -

photo here