Pedro Martinez tosses seven solid innings as Boston ends its road trip with a win.

CLEVELAND – Pedro Martinez couldn’t complain about a thing.

Boston’s ace dominated Cleveland again, settling in after a shaky start to pitch seven strong innings and lead the Red Sox to a 5-2 win over the Indians on Thursday night.

Martinez (4-2) gave up four hits – three in the first inning – and improved to 11-1 in 15 career starts against the Indians. He’s also 6-0 at Jacobs Field.

Martinez made his second appearance since publicly criticizing Boston’s front office, cutting off contract talks with the Red Sox and declaring he would explore free agency after the season.

The next day, he was hammered for six runs and nine hits in four innings during a loss to Texas. This one didn’t start much better for the three-time Cy Young Award winner, who quickly fell behind 2-0 in the first.

But the Indians did little after that, putting only five runners on base with just one getting to third. Martinez walked three and struck out eighth overall.

With his 105th victory for Boston, Martinez moved into a tie with Lefty Grove for eighth place on the club’s career wins list.

Manny Ramirez homered in the sixth off C.C. Sabathia (1-1) and Pokey Reese hit a go-ahead RBI double in the seventh as the Red Sox won their second straight to split the four-game series.

Kevin Millar had four hits for Boston, which went 2-5 on its trip to Texas and Cleveland.

Alan Embree pitched the eighth and Keith Foulke threw a perfect ninth for his sixth save in six chances.

Sabathia allowed four runs and eight hits in 6 2-3 innings. The left-hander didn’t walk or strike out a batter.

Down 2-0, the Red Sox rallied with two runs in the sixth and two more in the seventh.

Reese’s double capped an eight-pitch at-bat in which he fouled off two pitches with two strikes from Sabathia, who left a game trailing for the first time in five starts this season.

Rick White came in and gave up a run-scoring double to Mark Bellhorn, putting Boston up 4-2.

Ramirez drove in another run with a single in the eighth.

He had tied it 2-2 in the sixth with his seventh homer, a two-out, opposite-field shot to right that made him 6-for-9 with three RBIs in his career against Sabathia.

Bellhorn opened the inning with a double and Gabe Kapler singled. Sabathia got David Ortiz to hit into a double play, but he didn’t have the same luck with Ramirez, who had grounded out in his first two at-bats.

Martinez arrived in Boston’s clubhouse about 21/2 hours before the first pitch, and immediately began joking with Ramirez.

“The baby is ready today,” Ramirez said as he patted Martinez, who smiled from behind a pair of sunglasses. “There is no cold weather, so he is good.”

Martinez wasn’t so good early on.

Matt Lawton unloaded on the right-hander’s first pitch, driving his sixth homer over the wall in straightaway center and denting a camera perched on the railing.

Omar Vizquel followed with a single and went to third on Jody Gerut’s base hit. Victor Martinez’s RBI groundout made it 2-0, but Martinez got out of the inning when Travis Hafner lined out and Gerut got doubled up at second.

Notes: Martinez has already allowed six homers in 43 2-3 innings this season, after giving up only seven in 186 2-3 innings last season. … Ramirez is now tied with Lee May for 64th on the career homer list with 354. … Lawton has led off the first with a homer six times in his career. … Cleveland has hit 24 homers – 19 have been solo shots.

AP-ES-05-06-04 2151EDT