Products You May Like
Question: Which Red Sox follower is less surprised than anyone that J.D. Martinez has rebounded from his struggles of a year ago by being as productive as ever so far this season?
Ortiz and Martinez are probably the top two DH’s in Red Sox history, so it makes sense that one understands the other so well.
Martinez mentioned numerous times that not being able to look at in-game video of his at-bats last season got him completely out of sorts.
Many people looked at that as an excuse. Ortiz will be the first one to tell you how legitimate a role that played in Martinez’s struggles because he knows how much video he studied.
“Everything was messed up last year,” Ortiz said in a phone interview with MLB.com. “Everything in general was messed up. Think about this, the guy wasn’t able to watch video and things like that last year. If I don’t watch video, how the hell am I going to hit?”
Perhaps people didn’t realize the extent of how much video aided Ortiz in his role as arguably the most successful DH in history.
“That’s all I did while I played. I watched video, watched video, watched video. When I heard the guys telling me they weren’t able to watch video, I was like, man, [I couldn’t believe that],” said Ortiz.
While there were those who searched for answers on how Martinez would bounce back this season, Ortiz already knew.
“To me, for J.D., last season never happened,” Ortiz said. “It never happened. J.D. is an incredible hitter. He is the heart and soul of that lineup. He reminds me of myself so much because he takes pressure off of all those kids. It’s not fair for people to judge him because of what happened last year.
“Last year, listen, if I was in his shoes last year, I’d be like, ‘OK, I’m not playing.’ Because so many things went down that affect you as a hitter and people don’t understand. People don’t understand that part of the game — you know what I’m saying?”
In the first two months of the 2009 season, Ortiz struggled so mightily that there was speculation he could be released. Things got so bad in the first month of 2010 that manager Terry Francona twice sent Mike Lowell up to pinch-hit for Ortiz. But Big Papi found his second gear and kept raking right up through his retirement at the end of the 2016 season.
He expects nothing less from Martinez.
“Sometimes as a player, we need to know that people sometimes don’t know any better,” Ortiz said. “We get people so used to the good things so whenever they’re facing situations where they see we’re struggling, they just run out of patience. Good hitters are always going to be good hitters.”
As for Martinez and his performance so far this season, Ortiz offered this: “What are they going to say now?”
After slashing .213/.291/.389 with seven homers and 27 RBIs in 211 at-bats last season, Martinez took a line of .353/.427/.718 with seven homers and 21 RBIs in 85 at-bats into Wednesday’s matchup against the Mets.