Ramon Martinez was tired and happy Monday night when he reached the Los Angeles Dodgers' clubhouse a little more immortal than when he left it - after striking out a club record-tying 18 Atlanta Braves.
The first hand to greet him belonged to Manager Tom Lasorda. The second beloned to baseball commissioner Fay Vincent, who had come to Dodger Stadium for one night between stops in New York and San Diego."You made it very special for us," Vincent told the 22-year-old Dominican right-hander. Then he turned to Lasorda and asked, "When can I come back?"
"In four days," Lasorda said.
Martinez (6-3) accomplished something that only one man in the first 100 years of the franchise had done. And he wasn't even born when Sandy Koufax last accomplished it.
Martinez fanned 14 of his first 19 batters and finished with a three-hitter in a 6-0 victory over that snapped the Dodgers' three-game losing streak. And he tied a mark established twice by the greatest pitcher in Dodger history.
"It was the best feeling of my life," said a beaming Martinez, who dresses nine stalls away from Koufax's old locker. "I was relaxed, throwing the ball well, throwing strikes and putting the pitches where I wanted. I didn't know how many strikeouts I had. I wasn't counting."
But he got the message after punching out Jeff Bluaser for the third time on three pitches for the strikeout that equalled the mark first established by Koufax on Aug. 31, 1959 against the San Francisco Giants and repeated the feat on April 24, 1962 against the Chicago Cubs.
"Anytime you strike out 18, you've got to be overpowering, and this was a special night," said Hall of Famer Don Drysdale, a teammate of Koufax and one of the Dodgers' broadcasters. "Sandy did it more on fastballs. Sandy had the great curveball to go with the fastball. You might have seen funnier swings off of Koufax than you saw tonight."
Martinez, 6-3, regained the major-league strikeout lead from Roger Clemens with 87 and came within two of the Boston right-hander's major-league single- game mark set against Seattle on April 29, 1986.
The only hits off Martinez were Jeff Treadway's first-inning single, Ron Gant's seventh-inning double and a single by Gant in the ninth.