It took a little nail biting but Pedro Martinez got his 18th win to finish off the season last night. Before even leaving the game after five innings with a sore shoulder it was decided that Pedro would not make his next scheduled start in Tampa Bay on Sunday. As everyone knows there will probably be some retaliation on the Sox part for the series earlier this month. No need to get Pedro seriously hurt with a charging hitter or suspended to start next year. That series should be interesting to say the least.

As for the game Pedro was his normal self. For the five that he was in there for he allowed only one hit and struck out six while dropping his league leading ERA to 1.74. Simply amazing.

Most of the offense was generated by Nomar Garciaparra, who only had one hit (17 game hitting streak) but it was a two-run dinger and jumped the Sox out to a 2-0 lead in the fourth. The other two Sox runs were scored on a solo shot from Dante Bichette in the 5th and an RBI single by Rico Brogna in the 7th.

The Sox lead the entire game but the pen allowed the Chi-Sox to inch closer each inning as they yielded runs in the 7th, 8th, and 9th inning (two-earned).

Derek Lowe after giving up the run in the ninth settled down and got tough, striking out Carlos Lee, getting Paul Konerko to pop-out to the infield, and then finished off the game by wiffing Greg Norton. All while the tieing run was on third base.

Carl Everett was also back in the starting line-up yesterday, but had to leave late in the game after he appeared to twist his ankle while leaving the batters box to run out a ground ball. I'd say chances are the Sox will shut Everett down for the remainder of the season to prevent any further injuries.

Sox play game two of the series tonight in Chicago at 8:05pm EST.