Strong Effort by Martinez Is Not Enough for Dodgers : Baseball: He gives up only a first-inning run to Marlins, but Hammond, Harvey make that stand up.

He usually takes so much time between pitches that it’s hard to keep track of the guy at the plate. Could it still be the same batter?

So Ramon Martinez said recently that he wasn’t going to pitch slowly anymore. He said he doesn’t want to think too much on the mound, because when he won all those games in the early ‘90s, he never used to think out there at all.

But in the first inning Thursday night against the Florida Marlins, Martinez was thinking. He was behind in the count and, before the inning was over, he gave up a run-scoring single to Jeff Conine in a 1-0 loss to the Marlins in the series finale at Dodger Stadium.

Then, Martinez settled down. He started to pitch so fast that the batters fell quickly. He retired 20 of the next 24 batters and struck out 10 in eight innings. The last time he struck out 10 was Aug. 9, 1990, against the Cincinnati Reds.

“He was throwing extremely, hard, the hardest I’ve seen him throw,” Mike Piazza said of Martinez. “He had a dominant fastball, and he came inside well and sank it well. It’s a shame that a performance like that was wasted.”

Martinez would have stayed in the game to pitch the ninth, but the Dodgers, who couldn’t do anything against Marlin starter Chris Hammond, needed to pinch-hit. Taking over for Martinez was Darren Dreifort, who made his major league debut, a fact mentioned by the Dodger public address announcer. Dreifort is the first Dodger since Sandy Koufax in 1955 to make his pitching debut without playing in the minor leagues.

For Dreifort, it was all part of what will become a cherished memory, because he retired the Marlins in order on three groundouts, and left the field to loud applause from what remained of the crowd of 30,027.

“That was nice to get out there,” Dreifort said. “I was kind of calm and it surprised me. It was a real nice response that the crowd gave me. It made me feel really good. Ramon pitched a great game, and I wish we could have won it for him. But it was really nice for them to announce my debut, I didn’t expect it.”

For Martinez (0-1), the problem was that Hammond (1-0) was also working the inside corner well. With few exceptions, the Dodgers couldn’t put anything together against the left-hander, who gave up only four hits in 7 2/3 innings--two each by Brett Butler and Delino DeShields. Bryan Harvey pitched 1 1/3 innings for his first save.

“That’s probably the best I have ever thrown inside; it’s probably the best game I have ever pitched,” Hammond said.

When spring training ended, the Dodgers were more concerned with their starting pitching and not the least concerned about their offense. But they have managed only 16 hits and seven runs in three games.

“We realize we have to not get discouraged,” said Piazza, who is one for 12.

“I know myself I am not swinging the bat too well, but it’s such a long year I know I can’t get anxious, which I feel like I have been the last three days.”

In the first inning, after DeShields and Butler singled, DeShields was stranded at third. In the third, DeShields was stranded at second. And in the sixth, the Dodgers left the bases loaded.

“(Hammond) threw a great game, and some games will be like that,” DeShields said. “Both pitchers threw well. We were in the game the whole way, just a hit here or there and we would be on top.”

Martinez was inconsistent the last two seasons, never equaling his performances of 1990 and ‘91, when he won 37 games. Toward the end of the ’91 season, he was hit in the right arm by a line drive off the bat of Jack Howell, and he says it was after that when his performance began to decline.

“It makes me feel good and I feel so confident when I have my fastball,” Martinez said. “I just had more and more and more confidence tonight. After I got hit in my arm, I started my struggling and I lost a little on my fastball and then I lost my confidence.

“For the past couple of years, I could not throw this hard. Now I feel more powerful. I worked out this winter and I feel much stronger. I gained 10 pounds.”