Dear Pedro,

It is my sincere hope that I did not just see you pitch your final performance in a Red Sox uniform. Oh, believe me, I hope we won’t need to see you again this October. But if next spring finds you suiting up in some other team’s uniform …

I will be sorrowful.

That said, if indeed you have pointed to the sky your final time under the blue-and-crimson cap … well I couldn’t have asked you to go out any finer.

Seven shut out innings against the best offense in the National League. Beautiful.

Oh, perhaps it wasn’t a gem. You got into jams, and only some completely dunderheaded baserunning prevented the Cards from scoring once or twice …

But once that happened, suddenly I was seeing the Pedro Martinez who made me fall back in love with the Red Sox in 1999. The dangerous, unhittable monster.

They say the Cardinals gave you a gift by running badly. Maybe that’s true. But more importantly, they gave us Red Sox fans a gift as well … one more, and maybe one final, look at the Pedro Martinez who gave us all hope and a reason to believe.

A while back, I wrote out my Five Favorite Pedro Martinez Moments. October 26, 2004 joins the list at Number Two. You don’t get to knock off the top spot, which is what drew me back, completely, into Red Sox Nation.

But, man, you made me happy.