"P" is for Pitching

Jason Michael Barker

Who says there's no good pitching anymore? For those of us who'd rather see a well-pitched 2-1 game than a 15-13 slugfest, Tuesday night featured a trio of pitching gems. One came from a source you might expect -- the great Pedro Martinez -- while the other two came from less likely pitchers, though good hurlers nonetheless in Chan Ho Park and Kris Benson.

In looking through Tuesday's boxscores early in the evening to check for any games already completed, I noticed Pedro's gem in the fifth inning, when he had a no-hitter with nine strikeouts and no walks. A closer look revealed the only thing keeping him from a perfect game was a hit batter: Gerald Williams, the first batter Martinez faced in the game.

This is mostly about great pitching performances, so I won't dwell too much on extraneous information, but the whole game between the Red Sox and Devil Rays Tuesday night was full of intrigue. I'd venture to say Tropicana Field saw more baseball excitement during the game than it had in all the time since it was built.

After Martinez hit him, Williams charged the mound leading to a bench-clearing brawl for which Williams was ejected and D'Rays manager Larry Rothschild was ejected for arguing the ejection.

Boston's Brian Daubach, who injured his left arm during the brawl, was thrown at by Tampa Bay pitchers at least four times and was hit twice. Starter Dave Eiland hit Nomar Garciaparra as well, but neither player charged the mound. Not a single Boston player was ejected from the game, while the Devil Rays had four players (including three of the five pitchers who worked in the game), two coaches, and their manager tossed.

Why were the Devil Rays so hotheaded, and the Red Sox so tranquil? Here's a theory -- players charging the mound and getting in fights are certain to be suspended for several games. The Red Sox are battling for a post-season birth and need the likes of Martinez, Garciaparra and Daubach to win games.

Tampa Bay, on the other hand, has nothing to play for save fourth place in the American League East (they'd be better of tanking it to get a good draft position, of course, but I'd never advocate such activity). What's it going to matter if Greg Vaughn or Corey Lidle misses a few games? Exactly.

Carl Everett turned in a great individual performance for the Red Sox, going four-for-five with six runs batted in. Needing a single in the seventh inning to complete hitting for the cycle, Everett instead settled for his second homer of the game. Darn it all!

By the time the eighth inning rolled around, I started looking for the game on TV, figuring ESPN would certainly cut away from whatever World's Strongest Man or Celebrity Golf Challenge they happened to be showing at the time. Much to my surprise, they weren't even airing sports -- it was an X-Games concert featuring No Doubt.

When they finally did cut away, there were two outs in the eighth and Pedro was still spinning the no-no. Working to chants of "Let's go, Pedro" (remember, this was in Tampa Bay, not Boston), he fanned impatient hack Jose Guillen on three pitches.

After getting ahead 1-2 on John Flaherty, a former member of the Red Sox (doesn't it always seem to work out that way?), as he led off the bottom of the ninth, Martinez allowed a single to right-center on a high fastball that was nearly at Flaherty's shoulders. It wasn't a bad pitch at all -- credit Flaherty for not popping up weakly to second base.

And with that, the no-hitter was history. Pedro's final line -- 9 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 13 K's -- amounts to the best pitching performance so far this year, and is yet another indication that he's the best pitcher to come along in a long, long time.

In Milwaukee, Chan Ho Park turned in another masterful performance as the Dodgers beat the Brewers 7-2. Park took a no-hitter into the sixth before allowing a walk to pinch-hitter Mark Sweeney and a two-run homer to James Mouton, the only hit he'd allow all evening. While he didn't pitch a complete game, he did fan 14 Brewers in eight innings to go along with three walks and the one hit allowed.

Finally, in San Francisco, Pittsburgh's Kris Benson also turned in eight innings of one-hit ball, though he did walk five Giants. The only hit he allowed was a first-inning single to Barry Bonds, and he fanned seven batters.

Homers may put fans in the seats, but I'll take a good pitching performance any day of the week.

Jason Michael Barker was going to write about how well Andy Pettitte pitched tonight. If you're a Mariner fan, why not thank him for jinxing the Yankees at at jmb@strikethree.com.

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