onnect all the dots, and you have Pedro Martinez by the numbers. His pitch for history is there for all to see.
Fifteen wins at the All-Star break, tying Roger Clemens's Red Sox record while becoming the first pitcher to win 15 at the break since Atlanta's Greg Maddux, the four-time Cy Young Award winner, went 15-3 in 1988.
A 2.10 earned run average, the lowest in the major leagues. A 1.80 ERA in Fenway Park, best ERA in the league at home. A 2.50 ERA outside of Yawkey Way, the best ERA in the league away from home.
One hundred eighty-four strikeouts, most in the American League. An average of 12.48 strikeouts per nine innings, the highest rate in the majors. A career-best 16 strikeouts against the Braves June 4 in Fenway Park. Seven straight games of 10 strikeouts or more, 46 10-K games in his career. Thirty-three consecutive innings in which he struck out at least one batter. Eleven times in 132 2/3 innings in which he has struck out the side.
A strikeout-to-walk ratio of 7.67, the best in the major leagues, with a chance to have one of the greatest differentials of any pitcher ever to strike out 300 batters in a season.
Fewest hits per nine innings in the American League, 7.02. Fewest base runners per nine innings, a shade over 9. The lowest batting average against, .213. The lowest slugging average against, .292. Fewest home runs per nine innings, 0.34 (five in 132 2/3 innings).
''Sometimes I've got to pinch myself,'' Red Sox pitching coach Joe Kerrigan said. ''I mean, Wow! This guy is doing something very special here in front of our eyes. Sometimes you have to step back and say, `Do you realize what's going on here? What's going on here?'''
The man himself is not unaware of what he has achieved by the midpoint of this season. But for Martinez, the numbers offer just a partial glimpse of his handiwork on the mound.
''What do I appreciate the most?'' Martinez said. ''I guess the team in general. The way my team feels when I'm out there. I think that's the most important thing about what's happening now. They feel we have a chance to win whenever I'm out there, and they try for it. That's probably why the results are the way they have been.
''I don't care about my record, really. What I care about is what Nomie [Nomar Garciaparra] has to say after a game. How every one of my teammates comes up to me and says, `Way to battle out there, way to pitch your heart out.' They do that for me, I do that for them. We stick together, that's what's really important.''
Kerrigan was Montreal's pitching coach when Martinez was traded to the Expos by the Dodgers in 1993, when Dan Duquette, then general manager of the Expos, parted with second baseman Delino DeShields for a skinny Dominican kid who never made it out of the bullpen with the Dodgers.
''I remember the first time I saw him,'' Braves manager Bobby Cox said on the night Martinez struck out 16. ''He looked like he was 140 pounds, and he was throwing 130 miles an hour. I thought, `My God, his arm is going to fly off.'''
By 1997, Martinez was the National League Cy Young Award winner for the Expos, but as rapid as his ascent was, there were growing pains.
''He had his early moments there where he would drift,'' Kerrigan said. ''He would drift sometimes for 30 or 40 pitches. He would lose his focus, walk a couple of batters, then there'd be a first-pitch fastball home run, boom, and he'd be down, 3-0. Then he'd wake up.
''There were moments he'd be unfocused, but you never see them now. They're long gone. Youth will be served. That's where it came from, his youthfulness.''
When Duquette traded again for Martinez at the expansion draft in Arizona after the '97 season, Kerrigan was reunited with the pitcher best suited to be the first star of the new millennium. He's only 27, he hasn't missed a start in five years, and he has a repertoire of pitches unmatched in either league.
''I've said this many times to many people,'' Kerrigan said, ''but what impresses me most about Pedro is his humility. He's a very humble man. What he's achieved, he's very much taken in stride. He doesn't boast about what he's done, though he very much has a right to. He puts it in its proper perspective. He just worries about the next game and how his body is going to feel the next time he goes out there.
''It's great in this day and age, when people are pounding their chests over mediocrity, in this day and age of the athlete who's showing off all the time, I think he's a breath of fresh air in that he's a very humble man.''
There remains, of course, the how of the equation. How this ''little man,'' as he was called by Expos manager Felipe Alou - who not only is loved by Martinez like a father but bears an uncanny resemblance, the pitcher says, to his real father - is able to transcend the transparent limitations of his size.
''Felipe's expression was, `We have to take care of the little man,''' Kerrigan said, responding to a question about Martinez's longevity. ''That's always in the back of our minds, taking care of the little man.
''He has a loose arm. It's almost like a `Slinky' arm. He has great mechanics, so I think that's a reason why he hasn't had any arm trouble and hasn't missed a start in five years. He has that great loose arm.
''He reminds me of Dennis Martinez, who was the closest thing as far as his build. Dennis was 170 pounds, with a baby-like arm, real skinny arms. Dennis never had a bad arm until he was 40. Even if Pedro lost a little bit off his fastball, suppose he had to come down to 90 miles an hour instead of 94 or 96, because of his command and his changeup and curveball he'd still be a great pitcher.
''If God came down tomorrow and took 5 miles off his fastball, he'd still win 15 to 20 games because he's all about control now, control and command.''
Consider the palette of pitches from which Martinez chooses. His changeup is universally regarded as the best in the game.
''It might be the best nonfastball pitch in baseball,'' Kerrigan said. ''He throws it with the same arm action as his fastball and it has great tight spin with it. The velocity he creates with that arm action and the spin he has created allows it to go down like a screwball. It is a screwball, not even close to a straight changeup.
Fastball?
''He has the ability to throw a rising fastball,'' Kerrigan said. ''[Jeff] Reardon used to have that. You get under the ball just a little bit and the ball has the illusion of rising. Actually, it stays straight but it has a little hop at the end.
''He has that ability and he practices it all the time, the high fastball in the zone. He gets underneath it just a little bit with his wrist and the ball does seem to rise and take off. That's a true art form, and he practices it all the time. It's part of his repertoire while he warms up, and when he throws on the side. He works at it.''
Sit in on a Pedro Martinez warmup session, and this is what you would see.
''Not only does he practice throwing to the zones low and away on both sides of the plate, he also practices the zone high inner half to both sides,'' Kerrigan said. ''He has that sign with his catcher [Kerrigan runs his hand across his jersey] that means he's going to throw the ball up. It's like that Wiffle Ball `whoooosh,' it takes off like that.''
There's a reason Martinez went through a stretch where his strikeout numbers were down.
''You're seeing a lot more people swinging at the first or second pitch against him,'' Kerrigan said. ''Felipe used to have a saying: People who do that don't want to stay around for the fight, they don't want to stay in the ring for the fight with him.
''They don't want to deal with that changeup. They don't want to deal with that rising fastball with two strikes. So I think you see more people go after him on the first or second pitch, which is great. It keeps the pitch totals down. He doesn't care about the strikeouts.''
Yes, Kerrigan acknowledges, Martinez wears down by the end of the season, which is why he and manager Jimy Williams go to such great lengths to give him an extra day's rest whenever they can. Remember the controversy during the playoffs against the Cleveland Indians last October, when Williams gave the ball to lefthander Pete Schourek for Game 4, ignoring the option of bringing back Martinez on three days' rest? Now it can be told: Even though Martinez intimated otherwise at the time, there was no way he could have pitched.
''It's a nonissue,'' Kerrigan said. ''I caught him in between [two days after his Game 1 start] and he had absolutely nothing, no arm strength left. If we'd thrown him out there on three days' rest, we might have permanently injured him. He didn't have anything left to give.''
So, Martinez was saved for another day. Perhaps this one, when he takes the mound tonight at Fenway Park as the starting pitcher for the American League All-Stars, in a town that may have no choice but to place him, one day, in a pantheon of stars that includes Orr, Bird, and Teddy Ballgame.
''Isn't he almost there already?'' Kerrigan said.
That answer will be revealed in time.
''I'm a very positive person,'' Martinez said. ''I believe in God, I believe God protects you, because otherwise I don't think I'd be here.
''But I'm also very realistic. I know things can happen at any time. An injury, or your heart might not be there. You have to take full advantage of the time you have to do something, you have to enjoy it while you can.''
Let him enjoy this while it lasts. Let us enjoy him while we can.
