Posted By Lynn Worthy, Sun Staff
The Red Sox will not be the only ones on the outside looking in during the playoffs. Former Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez will also be watching the playoffs this year as the New York Mets found a torn tendon in his left calf that will end his season.
Martinez would have been a candidate to pitch the opening game of the National League Divisional Series next week. The Mets have clinced the NL East title and come into today with a record of 94-65 -- tops in the NL.
He finishes the season with a record of 9-8 and an earned run average of 4.48 in 23 starts. Martinez had stints on the disabled list this season for a hip injury and for a right calf injury.
Martinez a three-time Cy Young Award winner was 15-8 in 2005 with an ERA of 2.82, and won 16 games in 2004 with the Red Sox.
Bad decision not to keep him on the Red Sox, heh Teddy? Those bastards!
Yeah, they've done great without him...really spent the money they've saved wisely to improve the team. They went from what? World Series winners to battling the Blue Jays for 2nd place in the division.
As stated earlier, injuries do happen to everyone, even the young studs. If Pedro has another year like this one, I'll be more than happy to call it a great decision. Will the Kool-Aid Brigade be so eager to question their boys if he bounces back with a big 2007?
It won't happen Teddy. He's in the National League and he still can't put up good numbers for a sustainable amount of time. He can't make it through a full season without breaking down. Two years, to DL stints, shall we say 3 in a row? If I were a betting man, HELL YA!
Exactly when did it become gospel that Pedro is the only elite pitcher to miss starts due to injury? Other than Johan Santana (who's still young...give him time), name me one other elite or very good starter not to miss time due to injury the last 2 years.
Halladay? No. Mussina?. No. RJ?. No. Kazmir?. No. Schilling? No. Beckett? No. Liriano? No. Colon? No. Harden? No. Clemens? No. Petite? No. Owwalt? No. Carpenter? No. Wood and Prior? Hell no! Schmidt, Webb and Peavey? No.
Face it gang. The way baseball is today starting pitchers, the ones that pitch the most innings in the most pressure packed games, rarely last a full season without missing starts. If they do, they almost always miss a huge chunk of the following season. It's nice to point to Pedro's frailty to help us fell better about the fact we've gone from Champs to chumps in 2-years. But let's not let the facts get in the way of a good argument here.
Pedro has been diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff and is out for the next 8 months. Wasn't he diagnosed with a slight tear while here in Bosotn that according to Pedro, wasn't supposed to be something physical therapy couldn't handle? The guy was the greatest pitcher of all time at one point. But his small frame simply couldn't handle the stress of his natural ability. The guy was AWESOME, but the Sox made the right decsion here.
Let it go teddy,
Looks like Petey's done. The Sox were luckily out bid by the Mets. Pedro is no idiot, he knew his clock was ticking and the next pitch could be his last..so he CASHED IN.
If you want to Pound the front office on other personell issues, that's fine, but in this case it appears they lucked out.