MIAMI — He didn’t march out to the All-Star Game hill and slice and dice those poor National League hitters into midsummer ribbons the way Pedro Martinez memorably did back in 1999.

Instead, Chris Sale had to settle for merely being very good in the 2017 All-Star Game.

And perhaps that’s just as well. Try though many of us do to compress the man’s 6-foot-6 frame into a modern-day, Florida-born Dominican Dandy, it’s best to just settle into the rhythm of knowing that Sale, like Martinez did back in the day, is giving Red Sox fans a season of mesmerizing pitching.

It’s just that he’ll continue to do it in his fashion. Sale, remember, says very little. Martinez? He once talked about waking up the Bambino so that he could drill him in the backside.

So while Pedro’s first All-Star appearance as a member of the Red Sox was five strikeouts in two innings at Fenway Park on that pinch-me night in 1999 when no less a legend than Ted Williams himself led a parade of the game’s greatest living players out to the field, Sale went out and pitched two shutout innings, but with just two strikeouts.

And if it’ll make you feel any better, there was a pitch in there that registered 99.5 mph on the Marlins Park radar gun.

“Obviously you don’t have to cover six, seven, eight, nine innings so you can kind of air it out a little bit more,” he said. “It’s a little more loose of an atmosphere because it is based on having fun. It’s not quite as competitive, but I still like to get after it the way I usually do.”

But let the record show that the Florida Dandy – which doesn’t sound very good at all when you get right down to it – had himself one heck of a good time pitching in the All-Star Game.

The bonus, for him, is that Miami is drivable from Lakeland, where he grew up, and Naples, where he now lives. He planned to drive home after the game, and he flashed a huge smile when he talked about the big cookout he’ll be throwing before heading back to Boston to begin the second half of what is looking more and more like a very promising season for the Red Sox.

“I always enjoy it, the adrenaline out there,” Sale said of the All-Star Game. “Being in front of the crowd, the stadium, all the noise. I had a blast.

“It was exciting. I threw two innings two years ago, but I didn’t start the game so to be able to start and go two innings, it was fun. It got a little hairy there for a minute, but it all worked out.”

Yes, hairy, as in Sale’s opening the second inning by yielding back-to-back singles to the Nationals’ Daniel Murphy and the Rockies’ Nolan Arenado. But he was helped greatly when the Nationals’ Ryan Zimmerman hit into a 4-6-3 double play, after which he bore down and struck out hometown hero Marcell Ozuna of the Marlins to get out of the inning.

No, he did not have those Pedro-like five strikeouts.

And that was OK with him.

“You don’t play the game for history or numbers,” he said. “Or personally, I don’t. I like going out there and competing. I like going out there and pitching as good as I can. However it shakes out, it does.”

However it shakes out, it does. We won’t remember that the way we remember Pedro saying, “If you come into my house, I’ll shoot you.” But that’s the beauty of it all: Chris Sale isn’t trying to be anyone other than who he is, and so far it has worked wonderfully for all involved. We don’t know if he’s comfortable with The Boston Baseball Experience or burdened by it, beyond his occasional quips that he simply chooses not to get caught up in any of that.

Hey, the Hall of Fame is filled with stoic types. Many of them earned World Series rings, too.

There will never be another Pedro Martinez.

Won’t be another Roger Clemens, either.

Now we’re in on the ground floor of the Boston years for Chris Sale, and maybe one day we’ll be able to say there won’t be another like him, as well.

And don’t think for a moment that Sale isn’t totally into that new uniform he’s wearing. He is. He said so.

“Being here with a new team for the first time, it almost felt like my first All-Star Game,” Sale said. “There’s a lot that goes into this, but I was appreciative being here wearing this uniform.”

He didn’t make history Tuesday night. But he has made himself at home. The hope is that the history will follow.

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