BOSTON – When the leadoff hitter is batting .360 and isn’t in the lineup against Pedro Martinez with the Yankees on a three-game losing streak, alarms go off.

That was the case in the Yankees’ Fenway Park clubhouse yesterday morning when hitting coach Rick Down posted the lineup card on the wall near the entrance.

Instead of starting with Alfonso Soriano, Joe Torre’s lineup had Derek Jeter in the leadoff spot for the first time this season. So what was up with Soriano, the Yankees’ best hitter across the first 11 games?

Not much if you ask him but he was icing his left hamstring, which played four games on SkyDome’s artificial surface earlier in the week, in the cramped clubhouse.

“Gino [Monahan] came to me and said [Soriano] felt something,” Torre said. “That’s when I scratched him. Gino then came back to me and said [Soriano] was fine. I talked to him and he wanted to let me know that he was fine. He wanted to get across to me that he was OK.”

Still, the always-cautious Torre started Enrique Wilson at second and batted the switch-hitter ninth. Wilson entered the game hitting .300 (3-for-10) against Martinez. Soriano was 2-for-13 (.154) against Martinez. Only Rondell White’s .400 (2-for-5) average versus Martinez was higher than Wilson’s.

“The ice was because I played the games on turf,” said Soriano, who went 2-for-5 in Friday night’s 3-2 loss to the Red Sox. “I am not hurt. I can play. It’s nothing physical.”

Torre’s decision to hit Jeter leadoff paid an immediate dividend when Jeter smoked Martinez’ first pitch to right-center for a double that ignited a four-run Yankees first inning.