BOSTON – Pedro Martinez said the muscle strain in his back was “aching” and his stuff was awful.
“I didn’t have a fastball, a good breaking ball or a changeup,” Martinez said. “I had nothing.”
Roger Clemens, meanwhile, thought his stuff was decent and, if anything, maybe his location was little spotty.
“I felt great,” he said. “Everything went well during my warmups and I carried it to the mound.”
Red Sox 13, Yankees 1. What’s wrong with this picture?
Maybe, based on what happened on the field, Martinez is overly humble and Clemens is in denial for their post-game observations of their performances in Game 3 of the ALCS yesterday at Fenway Park.
If anything, it looked like Clemens was hurting and Martinez had great stuff as the Red Sox right-hander pitched seven shutout innings while Clemens lasted just two-plus innings and gave up five runs.
It turned the Matchup of the Millennium into the Farce at Fenway. If Martinez was indeed hurt, the Yankees don’t want any part of him when he’s healthy. With no fastball, no breaking ball, no changeup and pain everytime he threw, Martinez set a Red Sox record with 12 post-season strikeouts and turned his pitching showdown with Clemens into a lopsided rout.
Once Clemens took the hill in the bottom of the first, it took just two pitches to get a hint that this so-called showdown would turn into a joke.
BAM! Jose Offerman slammed Clemens’ second pitch to the base of the wall in right for a leadoff triple.
BAM! John Valentin followed Offerman by driving a 2-2 letter-high fastball over the 37-foot Green Monster in left.
Red Sox 2, Yankees 0. Good stuff? Please.
“Right from the get-go, I thought my location had to get better,” Clemens said. “I definitely didn’t want to have a start like that. After [giving up] two runs, you’re fighting and clawing.”
Of course, Fenway Park went nuts. The Red Sox could have sold 75,000 tickets to this game, but most of the 33,190 fans who did get in not only wanted the Red Sox to win but to see Clemens pummeled in the process.
“Traitor! Traitor!” they had yelled to him as he drove his green blazer into the players’ parking lot two hours before the game.
“Yankees [stink]!” yelled another.
“Who needs Clemens when you have Pedro?” said another.
Those sentiments were shared by the rest of the sellout crowd which has never forgiven Clemens for signing a big-money contract with Toronto three years ago. So what if he had pitched here for 13 years and won three of his five Cy Young Awards? They enjoyed his quick death on what would be the second shortest outing of his career.
As the crowd chanted, “Roogggeer, Roogggeer,” Clemens gave up two more runs in the second inning and opened the third inning by allowing a lead-off single to former Yankee Mike Stanley. By then he had given up a home run, a triple, two doubles and two singles, and had already thrown 60 pitches.
After Clemens got strike one on the Red Sox DH Brian Daubach, Joe Torre had seen enough, signaling in Hideki “The Sacrificial Lamb” Irabu from the bullpen as Clemens took the long walk back to the dugout.
In two-plus innings, Clemens allowed five runs [all earned], six hits, two walks and two strikeouts.
“He just didn’t have the command that we would like to see him have or that he would like to have,” Torre said.
Clemens agreed, saying it wasn’t nerves or mechanics, just location.
“I made some good pitches, but they weren’t good enough,” he said. “Let’s give them some credit.”
Was he bothered by the crowd that treated him like the biggest traitor since Benedict Arnold?
“No, I was locked in pretty good,” Clemens said. “Anytime you’re in a visiting stadium, it’s going to be loud.”
It couldn’t help the Yankees’ psyche to hear Martinez talk as if he was near death on the mound, despite limiting the Yankees to just two hits.
“I was aching,” Martinez said. “I felt it from the get-go. I was able to keep throwing without hurting any more or breaking anything, but I could feel the soreness in there and the pain.”
Funny, it didn’t look like he was having much of a problem. He struck out four of the first seven hitters, six of the first 11 and nine of the first 16.
“I just had to mix my pitches and try to catch them guessing wrong,” Martinez said. “That was the key, hitting spots.”
It was enough to beat Clemens and the Yankees and change the momentum of the series. Martinez now has 17 consecutive scoreless post-season innings, striking out 23 in that span. So much for the Matchup of the Millennium.
It was like an old Ali fighting a young Larry Holmes. Clemens, 37, is 10 years older than Martinez and showed his age.
Should the series go seven games, which is extremely likely, Clemens and Martinez are scheduled to meet again Thursday at the Stadium. Home field or not, Clemens goes into that game as the underdog. Maybe that one should billed as the Mismatch of the Millennium.