Martinez was the only one hitting against O’s
Only member of Sox to hit over the weekend
Three games in, J.D. Martinez accounts for 80% of the Red Sox’ extra-base hits.
He has three doubles and a home run. The only other Sox player with an extrabase hit is Christian Vazquez, who has one double. Martinez also accounts for 60% of the RBI (three) and 40% of their hits (six).
“Really, three games, it means nothing,” Martinez said Monday afternoon before the Sox opened a three-game series with the Rays. “There’s a lot of games to go — 159 more. The important thing is not hitting the panic button on these guys, not being like, ‘Oh my gosh, I haven’t hit in the first three days.’ It’s, ‘Relax. It’s fine. There’s still a long way to go.’
“I talked to a couple guys yesterday about their swing, some things I saw. So, we’ll see.”
Through MLB’s first weekend of the 2021 season, the Sox look like the American League’s worst team.
They’re 0-3, have scored five total runs while hitting .160 with a .214 on-base percentage, one home run and haven’t held a lead at any point in 27 innings.
“It’s pretty easy, we haven’t hit,” Martinez said. “Obviously the last game we didn’t pitch well, but we really haven’t hit in the last three games. Not to the capabilities that we’re capable of.
“There is obviously the pressure of that this is real now. Now it’s time to go. The other thing is the new scenery. You’re in Florida and it’s 80 degrees and it’s nice. You come up here and we walk into 26 degrees or 30 degrees and it kind of hits you hard. It’s just different. It’s not an excuse but certain teams react in certain ways to certain situations.”
Martinez and Vazquez are the only ones regularly taking quality at-bats.
Martinez said having in-game video access again has been a blessing after ingame video wasn’t allowed in the 2020 season.
“It’s definitely cooled my anxiety of being able to try something out, going in there and seeing, ‘OK, yeah, that looks better,’ being able to make those adjustments from at-bat to at-bat,” he said.
Dalbec on the bench
After his impressive spring training in which he led the Grapefruit League in homers, Bobby Dalbec has started the season 0-for-10 with five strikeouts.
Dalbec was on the bench for a day off Monday while Marwin Gonzalez got the start at first base.
Martinez said he still has high hopes for Dalbec.
“Bobby is a great guy, great kid,” Marti
nez said. “He’s hungry, wants to learn. For the last two years he’s been talking, trying to pick my brain about certain situations. We talked yesterday about his swing and his hips and I showed it to him on the video and it’s such a big difference. He’s going to be working on this stuff today, what we talked about. All I can do is show him what I see and hopefully it resonates with him.
“He has a good idea of what he wants to do now. He impressed me a lot during spring training. The strides he made from last year to this year, just in spring when I saw him, I was like, ‘ this kid can hit. This is real.’ He’s a big kid, he’s a nice kid, he’s hungry, he’s composed. To me, he has the makeup that he can be an impact player in this league.”
Watching Shohei
Shohei Ohtani was the talk of the sport after his incredible debut as a twoway player for the Angels on Sunday night, hitting a 450-plus-bomb in his first at-bat and throwing 101 mph while striking out seven on the mound.
Martinez said, “I saw Ohtani hit the ball 900 feet and 900 mph off his bat.
Dude that was wild. When I saw that thing it said 115-point-something mph, that’s hard. I don’t even know who, that’s like (Giancarlo) Stanton/(Aaron) Judgetype power right there. I don’t know who hits the ball that hard. And then to throw the ball 100 mph? That’s crazy. And his splitter was the most impressive thing. It was 93 mph and moving like a knuckleball. It’s impressive. That kid has a lot of talent.”
Unsure about new baseballs
With the baseballs having been changed this year in an attempt to limit home runs and increase balls in play, Martinez was asked if they’ve affected the Sox’ offense.
“I don’t know,” Martinez said. “I mean, I feel like I’ve only hit one ball that should have been a home run and it was, so I can’t complain yet.”
Manager Alex Cora said it’s too soon to tell and the cold weather is probably affecting the lack of offense more than anything. …
Lefty Eduardo Rodriguez (dead arm) was scheduled to throw a bullpen Monday and the team will decide afterward if he’s ready to make his debut the next time through the rotation…
Wednesday’s series finale will not be televised on NESN but will rather be on YouTubeTV and begins at 1:10 p.m.