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Pedro only part of Mets' recent run

Mark Herrmann

July 13, 2008

My, how the Mets have grown.

There was a time when their whole world would have revolved around Pedro Martinez and they would have spun out of their orbit if they had seen him leave a game in the fourth inning.

Not anymore. The sun still shone and the sky didn't fall yesterday when Martinez was lifted because his sore groin was causing his shoulder to act funny. Martinez himself took it as a compliment that the Mets didn't miss a step.

He still has star power, but he knows he isn't the sun that gets the Mets' planets aligned. He is fine with that.

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"It's not only me, it's everybody," Martinez said of the teammates who finished a 3-0 win over the Rockies, which was a 1-0 lead when he left for a pinch hitter. "It's everybody adding a little bit of something. I'm really happy with the way things are going, for everybody. Everybody did what they were supposed to do, and here we are: Eight in a row, right?"

Right, eight straight wins and he is in the mix. The point is, he isn't the mixer, as he was when he got here in 2005.

Martinez's age and injuries have given him a perspective and allowed the team to develop an identity. He is a nice piece, but only maybe the No. 3 or 4 starter. Who knows if the Mets will invite him back next season?

He seems to have cheerfully eased himself into the role of ace emeritus. He's great for attitude, wisdom, encouragement. Plus, the guy still can pitch. His four innings were excellent yesterday and his 5 1/3 innings in Philadelphia on Monday were fine, too.

It's just that he is not the cornerstone. In a way, that's too bad, because the Mets don't have one transcendent personality whose face can go on a Times Square billboard. But overall, this is progress.

Not to dwell on the two worst words in the Mets' language, "last year," but the truth is, the club seemed as if his teammates were waiting for Martinez to bail them out when they were sinking last September. And Martinez isn't strong enough to carry a franchise anymore.

Not with a balky groin that made his shoulder act up twice in the fourth inning and brought the trainer and the manager out to the mound.

"It's safe now. It's nothing to panic about," he said during a chipper postgame session. "I've got plenty of time to get my groin rested and good to go next time out."

The Mets have the luxury of being super-cautious with their 36-year-old guru. "We cannot afford Pedro to get out there and get hurt. We need Pedro for the long run," Carlos Beltran said.

In the same breath, though, Beltran added that it is great to see the kudos being spread around, such as the bullpen's five innings of no-hit ball. "That's the perfect picture right there," Beltran said, "because we're not depending on only one or two guys."

It's fun to listen to one special guy, a Hall of Fame-bound pitcher with a better eye for the game than most. In Martinez's view, the eight-game streak doesn't qualify as "a roll."

And his explanation for the surge is that the Mets no longer are coast-to-coast commuters, as the schedule made them the first three months.

"You don't even eat right. Everybody in this clubhouse dropped weight. You need your body, you need your health, you need your rest," he said. "We were sleeping uncomfortable on the planes, landing late. That, I think, affected everybody on the team."

There was a time when it seemed as if the Mets had to check with Pedro on the plane menu. What a change to see what happened yesterday, when he fought to stay in the game and still was overruled by manager Jerry Manuel. Martinez laughed when he said he couldn't recall the last time he was rebuffed (hint: it wasn't Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS at Yankee Stadium).

Manuel's firm hand is another sign of how the Mets have grown, an indicator of just who's in charge. Martinez is fine with that.

"Don't misjudge Jerry. Just because he seems mild and he's a Christian man and he's very easygoing and he laughs with everybody, don't think he's not going to establish his point. Jerry is from the Felipe [Alou] school," Martinez said. "Jerry can be tough. He's going to be tough, even with old goats like me."