Tonight, in front of a sellout crowd in the Bronx, Martinez will attempt to do the latter, just as he did 6 years ago in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series while a member of the Boston Red Sox.

That night, he faced veteran righthander Roger Clemens. Tonight, he will face veteran lefthander Andy Pettitte.

That night, he held the Yankees to two runs through seven innings before allowing three costly runs in the eighth. Tonight, he'll hope that a powerful offense facing a pitcher on 3 days' rest will make up for whatever mistakes he does make.

"I look at this situation as a blessing," said Martinez, who has appeared in just three Phillies losses since signing with the team at the All-Star Break. "I mean, what else would I want? I'm doing the job I love. I'm doing something that not everybody gets to do.

"If you consider the fact that 2 months back, I was sitting at home not doing anything, none of you were thinking about me whatsoever, none of you were asking me questions, and today I am here, probably pitching one of the biggest games ever in the World Series . . . This is just a great gift to me. This is a blessing."

In their quest for a now-even-more-historic repeat, Martinez is the wild card the Phillies feel most confident about. Although there is some question about Pettitte's ability to pitch effectively 4 days after throwing 104 pitches in a shaky Game 3 start, the lefty has done it before, in Game 2 of the 2003 World Series, when he allowed one run in 8 2/3 innings of a Yankees win. Although the Phillies' offense scored four runs against Pettitte, their three lefthanded sluggers - Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Raul Ibanez - went 0-for-9 with six strikeouts, and centerfielder Shane Victorino could be unavailable tonight after being hit with a pitch on his right hand in Game 5.

But for the first five games of what was billed as a matchup between two of the most potent offenses in the majors, the tide has risen and fallen on the performance of the starting pitchers. In Games 1 and 5, Cliff Lee earned the wins. In Game 2, A.J. Burnett outdueled Martinez. In Game 3, Pettitte's struggles cost the Yankees' less than Cole Hamels' did the Phillies. And in Game 4, CC Sabathia held the Phillies to just two hits in 11 at-bats with runners in scoring position before Alex Rodriguez' and Johnny Damon's heroics lifted the Yankees to a 7-4 win in the ninth.

Which brings us to Martinez.

In his first start of the postseason, he pitched seven scoreless innings in Game 2 of the NLCS against the Dodgers, but the 17-day layoff he had endured prompted manager Charlie Manuel to remove him after just 87 pitches. In Game 2 of the World Series, he held the Yankees to just one run in his first six innings, but allowed two in the seventh.

The Phillies are convinced Martinez is in peak physical condition, capable of the type of outing he produced on Sept. 13 against the Mets, throwing 130 pitches in eight innings of a 1-0 win.

"I think he's ready," Manuel said. "I think he's kind of peaking at the right time. He didn't have any spring training, went half-a-year, didn't pitch, and he had to work himself up. And then all of a sudden in Atlanta when he hurt his neck and when he had some trouble with his side, that kind of set him back. But right now, he's starting to get stretched out. The more he throws, the better he's getting. Yeah, he's capable of throwing a real good game."

The last time Martinez started an elimination game in the playoffs was in 2004, when he allowed four runs in six innings of Game 5 against the Yankees, three of them coming on a bases-loaded double by Derek Jeter in the sixth. The Red Sox rallied to win that game, then Games 6 and 7 to overcome a three games-to-none situation and advance to the World Series.

Tonight, he'll attempt to set the stage for a similarly improbable comeback. On Monday, the Phillies became the 25th team in history to take a 3-1 deficit into Game 5 and win. But only seven of those teams have proceeded to win Game 6 - the 1925 Pirates, 1958 Yankees, 1967 Red Sox, 1968 Tigers, 1972 Reds, 1979 Pirates, and 1985 Royals - and only three won it on the road (Yankees, Tigers, '79 Pirates).

There's a word for what he and the Phillies are trying to do: survive.

"Everybody that grows up in the Dominican [Republic] and didn't have a rich life, it's a survival," he said. "And in baseball, I am a survivor. I'm someone that wasn't meant to be, and here I am on one big stage."

Now, the Phillies hope he performs.

For more Phillies coverage and opinion, read David Murphy's blog, High Cheese, at http://go.philly.com/highcheese.