Martinez Says No to All Hitters : Baseball: Dodger right-hander lives and thrives entirely with fastball after third inning against befuddled Marlins.

Rene Lachemann started noticing it about the fourth inning.

Greg Colbrunn picked up on it pretty soon afterward.

Tommy Gregg saw it too.

Fastball. He’s throwing nothing but a fastball. Different places at different paces, but still a fastball.

Lachemann was a little late. Ramon Martinez discarded his breaking ball after the third inning Friday night because it wasn’t working that well and he didn’t need it anyway.

Here it is, a fastball. Hit it if you can.

The Florida Marlins couldn’t and were no-hit for the first time in franchise history.

“It’s weird,” said Colbrunn, the first baseman who was 0 for 3. “I’ve never been beaten with a no-hitter. A lot of these guys haven’t because this is a young team.”

It got a little older Friday night.

Martinez retired the first 23 Marlins, with only a hard-hit fly ball by Terry Pendleton that was flagged down by center fielder Todd Hollandsworth in the eighth inning considered worthy of mention.

Colbrunn then flied out, bringing up Gregg.

He took ball three on a 2-and-2 pitch and then ball four, both of them high, neither of them close, and counted it a victory of sorts to have broken up a perfect game.

“First base coach Rusty Kuntz said something about, ‘It’s about time I had some company down here,’ ” Gregg said. “Maybe I didn’t beat him. Maybe I didn’t break up his no-hitter, but I got on, and that’s what I was trying to do.

“The last two pitches weren’t close, because if they had been close, I would have been swinging.

“I wasn’t intimidated by any means. I’ve had some success against him before, but he wasn’t messing around. He was just throwing that fastball, and we knew it was coming. I was battling him and won.”

It was something of a hollow victory.

Friday night’s Martinez was not much different from the Martinez whom Lachemann has seen for a couple of seasons now.

“They said he had been struggling lately, but not against any team I’ve been with,” Lachemann said. “He was throwing 94 m.p.h. the first day of spring training. He was throwing 94-95 m.p.h. in the first inning tonight, and he was throwing 94-95 m.p.h. in the ninth inning. We knew he was coming out with the hard stuff.”

Lachemann stopped and did a double-take, checking over his charts.

“This can’t be right,” he said. “He’s throwing 92-93-94 m.p.h., and we don’t see a breaking ball after the fourth inning. Can that be right?”

It can and was, and such things get around a dugout with the speed of light.

“He was challenging us,” said Colbrunn. “Give him credit for that.”

And credit for getting away with it.

And credit the Marlins for picking up the challenge. No late-inning bunting to try to break up the no-hitter.

Florida 0 0 0 and still swinging, right on down to Quilvio Veras, the game’s last batter who fouled away three pitches before flying out to Roberto Kelly.

“You feel it,” Colbrunn said. “As it goes on, you get frustrated, but you know anything can happen. You can jam a hit. They jammed a couple tonight. And if you can jam one, then maybe more can come.”

Or not, as happened Friday night, when Ramon Martinez needed only a fastball to no-hit the Marlins, who knew the fastball was coming and could do absolutely nothing about it.