#Pedro20: The Dark Before The Dawn

The Chicago White Sox walked into Fenway Park with John Snyder on the hill, going up against Pedro Martinez, and walked out of there with a 4-0 victory. For those of you unfamiliar with John Snyder’s work, here’s a quick recap: three years in professional baseball, never threw more than 129 innings in a single season, and a career 6.01 ERA. That’s what makes baseball baseball. On any given day some guy who had a cup of coffee in the Bigs can walk into one of the most historic parks the game has ever known, toe the rubber opposite one of the greatest hurlers in the history of arms and balls, and walk out victorious because the Red Sox bats decided to go to sleep.

As for Pedro, 7 innings and six hits, only two earned runs yielded because Mike Stanley and Scott Hatteberg decided to kick the ball around the yard in the first inning, allowing Mike Caruso to score on a passed ball. Greg Norton drove in two of his career 338 RBI off Pedro this evening. If I was Greg Norton (which I might be, you wouldn’t be able to prove otherwise) I’d bring up this game every single day to whoever was listening to me: mailman, house cat, coffee shoppe barista, McDonalds cashier, absolutely anyone.

And while this game would make up for 25% of Pedro’s losses on the season, there were two positives to be taken away; Pedro lowered his ERA from 3.46 to 3.15 (the last time this season his ERA would be above 3.00) and he racked up his first 10 punch out game of this very young season. Something tells me this wont be his last game with at least 10 Ks for quite some time.

Season stat line to date: 2-1, 20 IP, 8 runs, 7 ER, 28 K, 3 BB, 3.15 ERA

*random sidenote about this game: Donnie Sadler started this game. When I went to a Paw Sox game as a 9 or 10-year old, he threw me a ball in the stands. As the ball approached me a crowd of hooligans and ne’er-do-wells circled around me like vultures in the desert following a dying coyote. It was knocked out of my mitts and into the abyss, no one ended up getting that ball. Legend has it that ball is still down there today: homeless, alone and scared. I’ve never gotten over this moment, nor do I intend to any time soon.