Pedro fans 11 in front of record crowd

By Tony Zonca

READING, Pa. -- A record franchise crowd of 9,953 turned out Wednesday night, the majority of them to watch future Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez make a Major League rehab appearance for the Phillies.

The night and the pitcher for the most part did not disappoint. Martinez displayed the stuff and the experience and the command of his craft that allowed him to put together a 17-year major league career that boasts a 214-99 record, a 2.91 ERA and three Cy Young Award seasons.

It was part baseball, part rock concert at FirstEnergy Stadium, such was the electricity in the air.

The Phillies scored three runs in the sixth against the Trenton Thunder to break a tie on the way to an 8-4 victory that made Martinez a winner at the Double-A level for the first time since 1991.

The rehab outing was Martinez’s third and finest since he was signed by Philadelphia last month to a $1 million contract that includes performance incentives.

In the first, fellow countryman Eduardo Nunez of the Dominican Republic took a fastball over the fence in left for a 1-0 Thunder lead.

After that, the 37-year-old Martinez was in complete control through five innings, striking out 10 of the first 17 batters he faced.

The right-hander -- he doesn’t light up the radar gun anymore -- had command of all four pitches: a fastball thrown consistently between 88-91 mph, an elusive cutter, a curveball and his circle change, which completely baffled the Thunder hitters.

He ran into some bad luck in a three-hit, three-run sixth, a bloop single, an infield single and two errors contributing to three runs, one of which was unearned.

Martinez threw 82 pitches in his six innings of work, 60 for strikes. He threw first-pitch strikes to 18 of the 23 batters he faced. He struck out 11 -- a Phillies high this season -- and did not walk a batter.

“I think I improved from the other time (Friday at Lehigh Valley) to this,” he said. “I was happy with my location from the get-go, yeah. That was an improvement and that’s what we want to see. I felt better (tonight), I got better, but I still have a little more work to do.”

Martinez said he needs to improve the location of his pitches out of the stretch position, but at the same time he said he was pleased with his physical conditioning.

“My shoulder is fine, my arm is fine, and they’re responding good between starts,” he said. “(But) it’s been a hard week -- back and forth in cars, up and down, here and there, Philly, eating out of a hotel, it’s been hard.”

Asked if he thought this might have been his last rehab assignment, he said, “It’s not up to me to decide that, but I hope so; I don’t want to ride in any more cars.”

Lost in all the Martinez hype was the fact the Phillies (61-48) are in a playoff hunt and trying to win a ballgame.

They tied the game in their first at-bat when Domonic Brown, the top prospect in the organization, blasted his first Double-A home run, which cleared everything in right field and landed on Route 61, some 426 feet from home plate. Brown also doubled in a run in a three-run third that featured Neil Sellers’ two-run shot to left, his 13th of the season.

An Ozzie Chavez RBI single in the sixth broke a 4-4 tie, and two more runs scored on a throwing error by Thunder third baseman Marcos Vechionacci.

It became 8-4 in the seventh on an RBI triple by Tim Kennelly, his third hit of the game.

Scott Mathieson and Sergio Escalona followed Martinez and combined on three scoreless innings.

But the night and the crowd and the buzz all belonged to Pedro. It was a night no one who was here will soon forget.

PHILLERS: The previous franchise attendance record was 9,880, set on April 22, 2007, on Ryan Howard Cap Day. . . . Twenty-six members of the media attended Wednesday night’s game. . . . Several members of the Philadelphia front office, including GM Ruben Amaro Jr., were in attendance. . . . Jeremy Bleich (2-5) took the loss. . . . The Phillies are 7-2 vs. the Thunder. . . . Given the option, Pedro Martinez chose to use a Major League baseball during the game. . . . Neil Sellers is batting .400 against the Thunder (12-for-30) with three home runs and 14 RBIs. . . . Michael Spidale has hit safely in seven straight games.

PEDRO MANIA: Phillies general manager Scott Hunsicker likened the buzz over the appearance of future Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez to 1994, when John Kruk came down from Philadelphia to rehab with the Double-A club.

“The Phillies had been in the World Series the year before, Kruk was coming off testicular cancer and hadn’t played in spring training, so the phone was ringing all weekend,” Hunsicker remembered. “He’s the reason we have a phone system. Until then we didn’t have one. Kruk and this (Martinez) are on the same level.”

Before the announcement that Martinez was going to be the Phillies’ starting pitcher Wednesday night, Hunsicker was expecting a crowd of around 8,000 on a night that was a tribute to sliced bread.

So maybe Martinez IS the best thing since sliced bread.

“It (his appearance) should add about 1,800 to the night’s attendance,” Hunsicker said. “It’s created quite a buzz, gives us great media exposure and brings in some new fans. It’s been awesome. It gives us another opportunity to show our product to the people.”

The club considered selling standing-room-only tickets to some 500 people two hours before the game but reconsidered.

“We want people to have a great time, and if you have too many people they wouldn’t have a great time,” Hunsicker said about the temptation to completely fill the ballpark and set an attendance mark in the process (which they did nonetheless).

And if the club runs out of free bread? Well, Hunsicker might have been tempted to say, “Let them eat funnel cake.”

DID YOU KNOW THAT Phillies batting coach Frank Cacciatore was the manager when Pedro Martinez made three re-hab appearances in 2007 with the St. Lucie Mets of the Florida State League?

This story was posted on August 5, 2009