ATLANTA -- The game came down to one eighth-inning mano-e-mano confrontation.
Boston's Pedro Martinez versus Atlanta's Gary Sheffield.
And Sheffield won the battle, lofting a sacrifice fly to the fence in left, just a few feet fair. Sheffield's RBI snapped a tie and gave the Braves a hard-earned 2-1 victory over Martinez and the Red Sox at Turner Field last night.
It was a tough-luck loss for Martinez, who, while not consistently featuring a blazing fastball, pitched masterfully in authoring his first complete game of the year, even while suffering a second loss in a row that dropped his record to 7-2.
The setback aside, the Red Sox seemed pleased with Martinez's outing, detecting no signs of shoulder troubles that always seem to be one pitch away given what the three-time Cy Young Award winner went through a year ago.
"I was really pleased with the way Pedro pitched," said manager Grady Little. "I can't see how he can pitch a much better game. He had a lot of life on his pitches. It was fun to watch. Maybe he's not throwing as hard as he was a year ago, but the kid did a good job of pitching. He pitched well with the stuff he had. That was fun."
Martinez had no complaints, either.
"It was not a bad game, nothing to be ashamed of," said Martinez, who gave up eight hits and fanned only five. "I felt a little fatigued from the flu, but I was stronger (than in last Saturday's loss to Arizona). My pitches and my body reacted well. If I can pitch the way I have the last two outings, I'll win more than I lose. This game was meant to be lost. No excuses."
Pedro's undoing began with back-to-back bloop one-out singles by Rafael Furcal and Matt Franco. Furcal made it to third when Franco's flare off the fists on a hit-and-run play dropped in front of right fielder Trot Nixon.
That set up Sheffield and the pivotal at-bat.
Martinez's first pitch was changeup that Sheffield swung through. Then Martinez tried to throw an inside fastball past Sheffield, but the Braves' right fielder crushed it, pulling it foul deep down the left-field line.
So the plan with the next pitch was to go up and away with a fastball. But Sheffield was able to get his bat on it, and settled for the sacrifice fly on the 0-and-2 pitch on a drive that very nearly was a three-run homer.
"We hadn't thrown him anything high all game," said Martinez, whose economy of pitches (87 through seven innings, 110 for the game) kept him strong throughout.
"I thought I'd get it by him. But he's got quick hands. Not too many pitchers get a fastball by him. That pitch was high and he still made contact. It was a bad (out of the strike zone) pitch and he did a good job of swinging at it. I was lucky enough to keep it in the park," said Martinez.
Catcher Jason Varitek gave the pitch-call a second thought, but probably would have called it again in similar circumstances for Martinez.
"That's a tough pitch to keep fair, but he did it," said Varitek. "What you want there is a popup or a strikeout. If we throw it again, he might pop it up to the infield. It was a good enough pitch that he could have swung through it."
But he didn't, so the Sox and Martinez had to settle for a tough loss.
"A bloop one way, a bloop another way, and then the sacrifice fly," said Varitek, shaking his head a bit at the Sox' fate. "But Pedro pitched well. As the game went along, he got in a good rhythm. Early he didn't have that rhythm, but he made some good pitches."
Martinez's fastball hit 93 a few times, but basically he just did a good job of mixing up his pitches, and locating them well. One pitch that didn't go where he might have wanted it turned into an RBI single by Javy Lopez in the fourth.
Lopez's single, a well-struck bouncing ball through the left side, delivered Andruw Jones from third base with two outs, tying the game at 1-1. Jones had pulled a one-out double and gone to third on a groundout.
Unfortunately for Martinez, the Sox offense wasn't able to reward his solid effort. Boston was held to three hits by Kevin Millwood, Chris Hammond (5-2) and John Smoltz (20th save).
Millwood gave up those three hits in his superior seven-inning stint. The Sox' only run came on a two-out hustle double by Johnny Damon and a single by Jose Offerman in the third. The Braves' pitchers retired 18 of the last 19 batters they faced, with the exception being Brian Daubach, who singled with two outs in the sixth.
