The extent to which Pedro Martinez once bucked an entire trend in Major League Baseball is mind-boggling.
The Boston Red Sox legend holds a mark ESPN’s David Schoenfield highlighted Tuesday as a “wild” team and MLB record “you probably didn’t know.” Martinez in 2000 held hitters to just a .167 batting average, something unheard of in an era of offensive explosion.
How stunningly dominant was Pedro Martinez in 2000? This is the lowest batting average a starting pitcher has ever allowed, but to put it in even more impressive perspective, consider the next four names on the list:
– Luis Tiant, .168 in 1968. The infamous Year of the Pitcher. The American League hit .230 that season and averaged 3.41 runs per game. There was so little offense that MLB lowered the mound and made the strike zone smaller for 1969.
– Nolan Ryan, .171 in 1972. Another extremely low-scoring season. The AL hit .239 and averaged 3.47 runs per game, leading to the creation of the designated hitter in 1973.
– Justin Verlander, .172 in 2019. A higher-scoring season (4.88 runs per game), but the AL batting average was still just .253.
– Nolan Ryan, .172 in 1991. The AL hit .260 while averaging 4.49 runs.
Then we consider to the American League in 2000. The league averaged 5.30 runs per game and hit .276. In the middle of all that offense, there was unhittable Pedro, giving up 128 hits in 217 innings. He gave up one hit in three starts, two hits in two and three hits in three others. He went 18-6 with a 1.74 ERA, giving him an adjusted ERA of 291, the best mark ever.
Martinez won his second consecutive American League Cy Young award in 2000 and third of his career, joining the one he claimed in 1997, his final season with the Montreal Expos.
His Red Sox tenure spanned between 1998 and 2004, and his dominance cemented him as a Boston sports legend. It only makes sense Martinez would have set some eye-popping records during that time.
