BOSTON -- Pedro Martinez did not make any excuses.
The Red Sox ace yesterday gave up as many runs -- eight, seven earned -- as he has in any game in his 10-year Major League career. The Toronto Blue Jays tagged him for nine hits in only three-plus innings. Martinez walked two and struck out four in Boston's season opener against Toronto, an effort that left the three-time Cy Young Award winner with an earned run average of 21.00.
It was bad. But Martinez did not blame anyone except the Toronto hitters.
"They were good pitches. They were just better at hitting them," he said. "I'm only human. I'm going to give it up."
A very human Pedro Martinez was not what the more than 33,000 Red Sox fans hoped to see on Day One of the John Henry Era. Of all the problems the Sox had in their wild 12-11 opening day loss -- and there were many -- Martinez's performance was at the top of the list.
There has been concern all along about how the bulked-up, but still slim, righthander would bounce back from the rotator cuff problems that cut his work short last season. His 6.62 ERA in five spring-training starts -- 22 hits allowed in 172/3 innings pitched -- did little to alleviate the concerns.
Still, even after what happened yesterday, Martinez insists he feels fine.
"Very good," he responded when asked how his arm felt. "Very good. Thanks to God. That's the only positive thing I can take away from that game is the way I felt."
It had nothing to do with the cool weather, nothing to do with the delayed start of the game because of opening day ceremonies, he said.
"This is just a game where the Blue Jays battled. I tip my hat to them. They knocked me out in the third inning. That's all I can say," he said. "I don't have any excuse. I'll have to make some adjustments and make better pitches. Hopefully the next time back I'll be better."
Manager Grady Little, pitching coach Tony Cloninger and catcher Jason Varitek all joined Martinez in saying they feel the pitcher is on the right track.
"When he was warming up, he had good movement and good location of his fastball," Cloninger said. "He may have not gotten location on his change up one time, but he had good arm speed. He's going to be fine."
The change-up on which Martinez missed his target was to Jose Cruz Jr., a pitch Cruz hit to the base of the fence in left for an RBI-double in a three-run first.
"It was good at times," Varitek said of Martinez's location. "Sometimes he located it exactly and they (still) did a pretty good job (hitting it)."
A number of the hits Martinez allowed were soft, Varitek said, most notably a change-up on which Darrin Fletcher broke his bat in the first inning. But that hit still went for a two-run double to left-center.
"We've all seen Pedro pitch better and we'll see him pitch better in the future," Little said. "But right now our number one concern is his health and he's feeling pretty good about his arm. We were able to leave him out there let him get stretched out a little bit, even under the circumstances. They found a few holes out there in the first two innings."
Martinez threw 83 pitches 58 for strikes. Scouts sitting behind home plate clocked his fastball regularly in the low 90s and as high as 94 miles-per-hour, very close to his normal speeds. Martinez said he threw all his pitches, including perhaps a dozen or so curves. However, at least one scout said that while the speed was fine, he did not think Martinez' pitches were moving as much as they normally do.
Little gave indications that he feels Martinez needs to regain confidence as much as anything else.
"Pedro's arm is feeling good. Once he gets it thoroughly in his mind that he's feeling good, he'll get down to the business of commanding those pitches a little better and commanding his delivery," Little said. "Everything will be fine." The manager conceded that while he is headed in the right direction, perhaps he is not there just yet.
"He's just about over it now. We've seen much improvement in the last three or four outings he's had," Little said. "I think he's very close to that point."
Said Martinez: "I made some good pitches, broke some bats. They found the right spots. Nothing I could do but give them credit and just continue to battle.
"I don't think I had such a bad time with my pitches. The Toronto Blue Jays had a good time with me. As much as I want to do better, that's all I could do today.
"I would like the results to be better, but I feel better. I know it's just a matter of time, hopefully. If I happen to have a bad season and I'm healthy, that's gong to be OK, too. I'm only human. I believe I just had a bad day at the office and I gave it up. I don't regret anything. I did my best."
