OR NOT...

MLB.com is reporting that Pedro Martinez will not start - Casey Fossum will slide into the starting spot tonight. Doesn't make things any easier, but, it would be interesting to hear what the reason is/was. Pedro can be, oh what's the word? Difficult? Cantankerous? Crybaby? Cowardly? Soemthing in there. For a pitcher of his supposed magnitude he certainly does pick his own spots to shine.

What? We have to say that Pedro is a God?

Pedro is a great pitcher and one of the top 50 ever to throw the horsehide around.

But, there's an upper echelon of pitchers do things that make them great and don't rely on a wildly optimistic strike zone to get them out of jams.

Guys like Jack Morris, Dave Stewart and ugh...who else? Morris and Stewart were very good in the post-season and still somehow aren't Hall of Fame worthy because they had bumps in the regualr season. Stewart's career is a wild read.

Roger Clemens definitley doesn't fit the bill. Until recently his playoff and big game resume stunk.

Tim Wakefield and Steve Avery actually have good post-season/big game resumes.

Pedro is one of those stat monsters that skews eveything up. It's hard to analyze and defend unless you can show games like last week where he was dominant and still lost. But nobody wants to hear that their end all answer has more chinks in the armour than a cheese grater.