Pedro Martinez said he had enough left in the tank to remain on the mound last night but would not dispute Willie Randolph’s decision to pull him with a one-run lead in the eighth inning.
“I don’t make decisions. I pitch,” Martinez said after the Mets’ 6-4 loss to the Brewers.
“I pitch when you give me the ball. I empty my tank and I get out of there. I probably could have gone out there and pitched the last two innings on 10 pitches. That’s how I do it sometimes, and sometimes it takes three or four pitches to get one inning in. The way they were swinging, I wouldn’t be surprised.
“But I will never argue a manager’s decision, regardless of what it is,” Martinez said. “I’m just here to pitch and I do as I’m told and as I’m paid to.”
It was another one of those elbow-grease games for Martinez, who rained eight strikeouts down on the baffled Brewers and gave the Mets every chance to win.
But his bullpen turned into a gasoline-soaked arson squad.
“When you’re playing teams like Milwaukee, teams that we expect to beat, and Colorado and teams like that, it’s a little bit more tough to swallow than the teams in our division and the teams we’re really chasing,” Martinez said. “But those guys play the game well. They have some clutch hits and, for some reason, they have made it tough for us.
“They’re battling out there, they’re not giving up, they’re not playing like they’re one of those teams that have been in last place for the whole season.”
Martinez struggled with his stuff early on as the Mets fell behind 2-0 in the second inning. But he got into a groove, he said, and cruised through the seventh inning, leaving with a 4-3 lead.
“They were jumping at a lot of first pitches,” said Martinez, who struck out the side in the sixth. At one point, he fanned six of 10 Brewers, zapping 75 of his 105 pitches for strikes.
Still, in the eighth and ninth, all he could do was watch in horror as the bullpen set fire to another game.
So now Martinez (12-3) has been charged with a no-decision in his last two outings, both late-inning collapses.
