Henry is not alone. Last night's winning pitcher, the non-All-Star Pedro Martinez, is of like mind.
"I'm very happy with the way we're playing and scoring runs," said Martinez, who has won five decisions in a row, hasn't lost since May 16, and in 14 of his 18 starts this season has departed with a lead or a tie score. "I'm happy to be back at home and start over from the ugly road trip we had . . . The way the team looks right now and the way we are going about our offense, a lot of teams are going to have a hard time with us. If we stay healthy, we won't have anything happen like in the first half."
Mark Bellhorn's first-inning home run off lefthander Mark Redman and a five-run second inning, triggered by Nomar Garciaparra's home run to dead center field, gave Martinez sufficient cushion to cruise to his ninth win against three losses.
The Sox have won four of five games this season from the A's, one of the teams ahead of them in the wild-card race, and in all five of those games the Sox have dismissed the A's starting pitcher before he completed six innings.
"That's two days in a row that we've run into some hot bats against our lefthanded starters," said A's manager Ken Macha, who watched Barry Zito endure a similar fate Tuesday night and will be coming back with young righthander Rich Harden tonight against Sox ace Curt Schilling.
Redman lasted just 2 2/3 innings as the Sox banged out 15 hits. Bill Mueller, whose three-run home run jump-started this homestand Tuesday night, had three more hits last night, while five Sox -- Johnny Damon, Bellhorn, Garciaparra, Jason Varitek, and Gabe Kapler -- had two apiece. The Sox, who were 7 for 17 with runners in scoring position, have 32 hits and 22 runs the last two nights.
"I would like to sit here and tell you it was 12," manager Terry Francona said about playing well on two consecutive nights. "We started last night, and we played a good one tonight. You talk about having confidence and things like that, but you have to do it.
"And we're starting to do that."
