8.8.00
ANAHEIM ANGELS vs BOSTON RED SOX
On a night that Darren Dreifort hit home runs of 441 and 462 feet and woke the Dodgers up long enough to actually defeat a sub-.500 opponent, you might think, as did my wife when I walked in the door at a quarter to ten, that my brother and I had picked the wrong game to go to. You would be wrong.
We had gone to the Monday Dodgers-Cubs game because we knew that Pedro Martinez was pitching the Tuesday Angels-Red Sox game. And I can tell you right now, there just isn't a more amazing spectacle in baseball than watching that little 165-pound Dominican utterly dominate the mound, perplexing, frustrating, and baffling hitters on his way to a complete game two-hitter. Really. And Pedro was pretty good, too!
That's right: tonight was about Ramon Ortiz, whom we last saw in April, throwing the ball up from the mound to the plate in his attempts to locate pitches to Fred McGriff in the strike zone. The diminutive 24-year-old (he's listed at 6'0", which is either a typo or a joke) was sent down to triple-A Edmonton shortly thereafter, where he'd remained until yesterday, when he was called up to live out his life's dream: tonight he would face his idol, the man whose every mannerism he's mimicked, whose every achievement he's sought to emulate, his friend and mentor, Pedro Martinez.
You could do worse picking an idol. Watching the two warm up in Edison Field's side-by-side bullpens was eerie; watching them out on the field, from a distance, was odder still. The illusion that there was simply one guy pitching the whole game—changing uniforms every half-inning—was a difficult one to shake. The fastballs, the change-ups, the curveballs, the sliders, they were indistinguishable. So was the machine-gun-like efficiency with which the pitchers dispatched opposing hitters. Tim Salmon managed a solo home run off Martinez to lead off the second; singles by Orlando Palmeiro and Garrett Anderson in the fourth would account for the Angels' only other run. The Red Sox's sole run came an inning later, when Troy O'Leary reached second on a dubious call and made it home on consecutive ground outs.
Look at the oh-fers, ferchrissakes! Trot Nixon, Nomar Garciaparra, and Carl Everett all 0-4, Jason Varitek, Brian Daubach, and Rico Brogna 0-3. Over in the other dugout, it was an 0-3 night for Darin Erstad, Mo Vaughn, Troy Glaus, Adam Kennedy, and Benj/gies Molina and Gil. By the time the top of the ninth rolled around, I was struck by the fact that virtually no one among the crowd of 30,000 had gone home; glancing at my watch, however, I suddenly realized why: it wasn't even nine o'clock. The game had started at 7:05.
(A brief pause while we switch over to the present tense for the dramatic conclusion. Thank you.)
Ortiz takes the mound to face the heart of the Red Sox's order. The crowd already on its feet. Varitek quicky fouls out to catcher Molina. Garciaparra bounces the next pitch down the first-base line to Vaughn, who picks it up and jogs over to the bag. Two down. Carl Everett steps to the plate, assuming his goofy I-gotta-go-to-the-bathroom stance. A curve for a called strike. A pitch inside. Another. And then...a high pop-up, leaning toward the seats along third (where we've managed to smuggle ourselves). Glaus drifts over to have a look, and makes the catch with room to spare.
Ortiz, unable to believe what's just happened, simply turns toward the visiting dugout and stares for a minute before being enveloped in a great Mo Vaughn bear hug. The line on Martinez: eight innings, 112 pitches, three hits, two earned runs, no walks, nine strikeouts; for Ortiz: nine innings, 112 pitches, two hits, one earned run, two walks, six strikeouts. Total game time: two hours, two minutes. Wow.
FINAL SCORE: ANGELS 2, RED SOX 1
MEMORABLE HECKLE: Somebody must have said something funny after Garrett Anderson inexplicably dropped a Troy O'Leary pop fly, but I didn't hear it.
