July 23, 2000: Pedro Martínez throws third shutout of the season for Red Sox

On a Sunday afternoon at Fenway Park, Boston Red Sox right-hander Pedro Martínez shut out the visiting Chicago White Sox, 1-0, his third shutout of the 2000 season.

The White Sox (61-36) were leading the American League Central Division by 11½ games over the second-place Cleveland Indians. They had the best record in baseball and had won six of their last eight games, losing the night before to Boston, 8-6.

Chicago had a formidable offense in 2000, led by eventual AL MVP runner-up Frank Thomas at designated hitter.1 Two White Sox – Thomas and right fielder Magglio Ordóñez – went on to receive Silver Slugger Awards. As Chicago prepared to face Martínez, it had scored 10 or more runs 17 times and had been shut out only once.2 The White Sox’ final tally of 6.04 runs scored per game topped the majors in a hitting-heavy season.

After losing 14 of 22 heading into the All-Star break, the Red Sox (50-44) were in second place in the American League East Division, but had rebounded; they had likewise won six of their last eight, and were only one game behind the Yankees.

Starting for the Red Sox and manager Jimy Williams, the 28-year-old Martínez entered the game with a record of 10-3 and an earned-run average of 1.49. He had pitched a two-hit, no-walk, 15-strikeout shutout of the Baltimore Orioles on May 12, then outdueled New York’s Roger Clemens with a four-hit shutout on May 28. He had also booked four other starts without yielding a run, working a total of 30 innings in those four starts and allowing only 11 hits.

Jerry Manuel’s White Sox countered with left-hander Mike Sirotka. In a season when the AL’s average ERA was 4.91, the 29-year-old Sirotka began the day with a 3.98 ERA and a 9-7 record. He had won six of his last eight decisions.

It was three-up, three-down for Chicago in the top of the first. Thomas – with a .340 batting average, 29 homers, and a 1.105 OPS – popped up for the third out. First baseman Brian Daubach hustled and lucked out with a one-out double for Boston in the bottom of the first but was unable to advance.3

In the second, two White Sox reached base. After the .331-hitting (1.023 OPS) Ordóñez flied out, Martínez hit first baseman Paul Konerko with a pitch. Center fielder Chris Singleton followed with a single to left-center, but on seven pitches, Martínez struck out both left fielder Carlos Lee and third baseman Herbert Perry. As the game played out, the White Sox never got a baserunner as far as third base.

Designated hitter Israel Alcántara singled with one out in the second, but he was the only man to reach base for Boston.

After two White Sox groundouts and a strikeout in the top of the third, the Red Sox saw Darren Lewis draw a one-out walk, and Daubach singled him to second. But shortstop Nomar Garciaparra grounded to Sirotka, out 1-3 as Lewis took third. Third baseman Ed Sprague then grounded out, short to first.

In the fourth, Martínez struck out both Thomas and Ordóñez, then yielded a single to Konerko, but Singleton fouled out to Sprague.

The Red Sox broke the scoreless tie in the bottom of the fourth. After Troy O’Leary flied out to center, Alcántara grounded to shortstop José Valentín, whose throw was high and into the Red Sox dugout – his 25th error of the season.4 Alcántara ended up on second base. He scored when catcher Jason Varitek swung at the first pitch and lined it right up the middle and into center field. Right fielder Bernard Gilkey hit into a 6-4-3 double play, but Boston had a 1-0 lead.

Martínez retired the White Sox on a foul popup to first base and two strikeouts in the fifth.

In the bottom of the inning, Sirotka allowed a leadoff single to second baseman Manny Alexander. Lewis bunted, sacrificing to get Alexander to second base. Daubach struck out. Garciaparra was walked intentionally. Sprague grounded into a force play at second base.

Neither team got a man on base in the sixth inning. 

With two outs in the top of the seventh, Martínez allowed back-to-back singles to Singleton and Lee, but then struck out Perry on three pitches.

Sirotka retired the Red Sox in order after the seventh-inning stretch.

Martínez struck out three White Sox batters in the top of the eighth. After the first two walked back to the dugout, Valentín singled to right-center, but Frank Thomas struck out swinging.

Sirotka – who had seen the only run of the game scored by either side result from an error – got a 4-3 groundout, a strikeout, and another 4-3 groundout in the Red Sox eighth. His team was still down by just the one unearned run after eight full innings.

The Red Sox had no one warming in the bullpen.

Ordóñez reached on a “bad-hop double”5 to left to lead off the top of the ninth, on the seventh pitch of his at-bat, the ball hitting the dirt near the lip of the infield grass and shooting right past shortstop Garciaparra.6 Ordóñez hustled into second base, and Chicago had the game’s first runner on in scoring position with nobody out.

Derek Lowe began to warm up in the Boston bullpen. Martínez did not yield, though it took 20 more pitches to complete his shutout. He’d been throwing around 90-mph fastballs for most of the game. In the ninth inning, many of them were 95 mph. He struck out Konerko, got Singleton to pop up to short, and then – on his ninth pitch to Carlos Lee, struck him out swinging. “I don’t know about you,” said Jimy Williams, “but for me that’s as good as it gets.”7

Three White Sox had reached second base during the game, as the Chicago Sun-Times summarized, “[T]his is what happened to the batters who followed those potential scorers: strikeout, strikeout, strikeout, strikeout, popout, strikeout.”8

Sirotka had thrown 125 pitches, with four strikeouts and two walks. He had given up five hits while Martinez had allowed six. Martínez threw 131 pitches, 95 of them for strikes. He had 15 strikeouts and had not walked a batter. “That’s what makes him the best pitcher on the planet,” said Sirotka.9

Both pitchers had thrown complete games. Neither allowed an earned run. The one error, in the fourth, had set up what proved to be the only run of the 1-0 game. “I made a mistake, and we paid,” said Valentín after the game. “But there’s nothing you can do if you don’t score any runs. But if there is anyone to blame, put it on me.”10

Martínez threw a fourth shutout later in the season, a one-hit masterpiece on August 29 – that one hit coming in the bottom of the ninth by the hosting Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

The Red Sox did not make the postseason, edged out in the AL East by the ultimate World Series champion Yankees. The White Sox did but were swept by the Seattle Mariners in the AL Division Series.

There were games Martínez lost in 2000 in which he gave up few runs – such as a 1-0 loss on May 6 and a 2-1 loss on September 20. He finished the season 18-6. 

At year’s end, Pedro Martínez had an earned-run average of 1.74. The next closest American League qualifier in ERA was Clemens at 3.70. As of 2025, Martínez’s ERA+ of 291 in 2000 – a measurement taking into account a pitcher’s ballpark and the league ERA – topped all qualified American or National League pitchers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Martínez was also named winner of the Cy Young Award for the second year in succession and for the third time in four years.11

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Pedro Martínez, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org, and video of the game on YouTube.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS200007230.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2000/B07230BOS2000.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6tR4Yp_KTw

Notes

1 Jason Giambi of the Oakland A’s was the AL MVP in 2000.

2 Ramiro Mendoza of the New York Yankees had shut out the White Sox on four hits on May 25.

3 The throw in from the outfield was not played well – not an error, but not played well. Daubach should have been out, but he was not.

4 He wound up with a majors-leading 36 errors in 2000.

5 Associated Press, “White Sox Are No Match for Martinez,” Los Angeles Times, July 24, 2000:  R3.

6 Afterward, Garciaparra “was fuming” about the condition of the infield dirt, reported one sportswriter. “An unfit field could have cost us the game.”  Garry Brown, “Field Condition Bothers Nomar,” Springfield (Massachusetts) Union News, July 24, 2000: 24.

7 Bob Hohler, “Pedro Throws a Masterpiece,” Boston Globe, July 24, 2000: D1, D5.

8 Rick Telander, “Precision by Pedro Makes Mockery of Hitting Skills,” Chicago Sun-Times, July 24, 2000: R3.

9 Steve Conroy, “Tough Luck for Sirotka,” Boston Herald, July 24, 2000: 108.

10 Paul Sullivan,” Sirotka Strong, but Martinez a Master,” Chicago Tribune, July 24, 2000: A1, A3.

11 Martínez also won the Cy Young Award in 1997 with the Montreal Expos.