Pedro Martinez pitches through grief

WASHINGTON – The last time Pedro Martinez rushed home to see his father, Paolino Jaime, once so strong he pitched both ends of a double-header in his native Dominican Republic, the old man neither opened his eyes nor spoke.

“I’m here to see you,’’ Pedro said. “Are you happy?’’

His father nodded.

“I’m here if you want me to stay with you. Do you want me to stay?’’

A slow shake of the head.

“Do you want me to go play baseball?’’ the son asked.

The head moved again. Up and down.

One last time, Pedro placed his father in the hospital. For two days, he was in intensive care. On the third day, he was sent home, and Pedro boarded a plane back to New York.

The call came too soon after, the night before Pedro was supposed to pitch in Shea Stadium. He came to the dugout and told manager Jerry Manuel the news: His father was gone.

“I did everything I could.’’ Pedro said here this week, three weeks after his father died. “I did everything possible, but I was never home, and that’s what hurt.

“As close as we were, I didn’t feel like I was there enough. But if I was there, it would have happened anyway, because God has a date for everybody.’’

Paolino, who worked as a caretaker at the school his children attended in Manoguayabo, the town where Pedro was born, was 79 when he died of brain cancer.

He had been battling the disease for months. The days this spring when Pedro was not in Mets camp, and club officials said he was dealing with a personal matter, he was seeing his father, who at the time was with him in Florida. Once, the pitcher said, his father slipped into a coma, but rallied. But then one day, his father said, “I want to go home,” and the son knew the end was near.

There are just over six weeks left in this baseball season, Pedro’s fourth with the New York Mets. He has pitched three times since burying his father in the Dominican Republic. The church was filled; David Ortiz’s father was among those who came to pay respects.

It has been a season of sorrow and disappointment. Pedro Martinez, who made just five starts in 2007 after undergoing shoulder surgery the previous September, was primed for a triumphant comeback until he strained a hamstring in his first start and missed the next two months.

“Getting hurt in the first game, after all that rehabbing, was a shock,’’ he said. “And then my dad. I couldn’t get my mind off him.’’

Martinez has made just a dozen starts this season. He is 3-3 with a 5.37 ERA. Of the 12 games he has taken the mound, the Mets have lost eight.

“I haven’t pitched enough for these people,’’ he said. “I don’t know if I’m going to end up doing what I’m supposed to do, like I did in Boston in the last year.’’

The Red Sox won a World Series in Martinez’s last season in Boston, 2004. The Mets took the Cardinals to seven games before falling in the NLCS in 2006 and suffered a shocking collapse last September by blowing a seven-game lead with 17 to go. They'd hoped the arrival of new ace Johan Santana, combined with a healthy Martinez, might put them over the top this season.

But Martinez was hurt, the Mets sputtered, manager Willie Randolph was fired, and the bullpen coughed up a half-dozen games in which ace Santana left with a lead.

Still, after a 12-0 pummeling of the woeful Nationals on Wednesday night, the Mets remain embroiled in a three-team race with the Philadelphia Phillies and Florida Marlins in the NL East.

Martinez, and the Mets, are holding out hope that he can still be a factor down the stretch.

“I’m starting to refocus,’’ he said, “and do for this team what I have to do and try not to think about anything else. It’s so hard. I haven’t pitched, I’m not throwing the ball the way I should. I’m trying to come back and get a feel for the game, get back to the fundamentals of pitching and tricking batters. I’m healthy. I can’t start soon enough to really, really help.’’

Martinez has a 3.12 ERA in his last three starts. Yet there have been far too many walks– nine in 17 1/3 innings – and a shocking number of home runs, five.

“But like anything else with Petey,’’ Mets general manager Omar Minaya said, “everything is possible, and everything is possible that is good.

“The arm is great, the velocity is fine. So far he hasn’t had command. The walks, the home runs, are because of command, and the only way he gets that back is if he gets on the mound and pitches. It’s going to come.’’

Even in the days when he could throw a 98-mile-an-hour fastball past hitters, Martinez prided himself on his intelligence, his ability to think three pitches ahead of any hitter. The fastball has long since tapered off, but the mind is as keen as ever.

Martinez, whose next scheduled start is Saturday against the Pirates, is anxious to see what he can give the Mets in these final weeks. Closer Billy Wagner, who has been on the DL with a strained forearm since Aug. 3, is scheduled to rejoin the team Monday. That should stabilize a bullpen that has regularly imploded in his absence – seven of New York’s last 10 losses were charged to the 'pen, though Joe Smith and Pedro Feliciano combined to preserve Santana’s one-run lead Tuesday night.

And beyond this season? “If he’s healthy, I don’t think he’s ready to walk away,’’ said Minaya, adding that whether Martinez returns to the Mets in 2009 depends on what he shows down the stretch.

“After this year, I’ll take my time,’’ Martinez said. “I’m not planning to go away from the game if I’m healthy.

“I’m only 36. I’ll be 37 next year (his birthday is Oct. 25). But one of the things I’m thinking about is my family. I lost my dad; how long will it be before you lose another one you love, like your mom. It’s difficult to think about somebody else.’’

And so he will think about pitching, honoring the wishes of Paolo Jaime, who played amateur ball on the island with future major leaguers Felipe Alou and Manny Mota. Paolo once said to his son, "If you take part of this arm that I have, you will go pretty far. This arm pitched for a long time."

And for all the trials of the last three seasons – Martinez won 15 games for the Mets in 2005, and a total of 15 since – the Mets, Minaya said, would make the same four-year commitment to Martinez all over again.

“For me, he’s accomplished the goals of what we wanted him to do,’’ Minaya said. “He gave us respectability in the marketplace, he promoted the brand. We don’t get Carlos Beltran, Billy Wagner, other players unless we made that investment.

“We’re in line to draw four million fans. Our TV ratings are 300 percent higher. That all started with Pedro Martinez. Our minor leagues, our academy in the Dominican Republic, we don’t get (top prospects) like Wilmer Flores or Fernando Martinez unless we sign Pedro Martinez.’’

The ball is in the son’s hands.