J.D. Martinez continues his historic month to spark the Diamondbacks’ rally over the Giants.
Nearing the end of a month in which he’s hardly seen a pitch he can’t handle, J.D. Martinez finally was thrown something that caught him off guard. It came in the form of a postgame question.
Is his incredible streak – which continued with a solo home run that keyed the Diamondbacks’ come-from-behind, 4-3 victory over the Giants on Wednesday afternoon – coming as a surprise even to him?
“I feel like that’s a tough question,” Martinez said. “There’s no right way to answer it. If I say yes, it’s like I don’t think I can do it. If I say no, then it’s like I’m arrogant or cocky.”
That Martinez had made it all the way to the ninth inning on Wednesday without hitting a home run was enough to earn some gentle prodding from teammate David Peralta.
“What’s going on with you?” Peralta asked him in the dugout. “Are you OK?”
Leading off the ninth, Martinez fouled off four consecutive pitches from Sam Dyson before hitting a down-in-the-zone change-up beyond the pool area in rightcenter field. It was his 29th home run in his 59th game with the Diamondbacks, who acquired him in a mid-July trade with the Detroit Tigers.
It was his 16th homer this month, tying a National League record for September/ October (Ralph Kiner, 1949) and leaving him one shy of the major-league record, shared by Albert Belle (1995) and Babe Ruth (1927). The Diamondbacks have three games remaining in the season.
“He’s a joke,” Diamondbacks third baseman Jake Lamb said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean, even playing with (Paul Goldschmidt) for the past couple of seasons. The run J.D. is on, I’ve never seen anything like it before. Legit, every time he comes up, not just me, but everyone thinks he’s going to go deep.”
In recent weeks, Martinez has felt like one of the only players swinging the bat well. There are some signs some of that could be changing. Though he went hitless on Wednesday, David Peralta drew the game-winning walk with the bases loaded in the ninth, and he’s hitting .304 (7 for 23) with two doubles and a homer in his past six games.
Lamb, who homered in the fifth, is 6 for 19 (.316) with a double and two home runs over the past week.
A.J. Pollock’s frequency of multi-hit games also is on the rise, and though he had just one hit on Wednesday, his single prolonged the ninth-inning rally, and he led the way on a double-steal that set up Peralta’s walk.
But Martinez’s blast was the talk of the Diamondbacks’ postgame. He’s hitting .306 and has 65 RBIs since the trade, and counting his numbers with the Tigers, he has 45 homers and 104 RBIs. He’s done all that in just 116 games after missing the first 51⁄2 weeks of the season with a foot injury.
“It’s one of those things where I go up there and I expect to hit the ball hard,” Martinez said. “I just feel like right now, I’m having success and being able to do what I want to do up there. I’m feeling comfortable in the box.”
But because he changed leagues, he’s likely not going to draw much MVP support from voters from either league. Or, at least, it would be a first if he did.
“If you’re looking at the entire body of work, those numbers could stand up to anybody,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said. “You talk about half of a season, that’s almost as good as a lot of full seasons, MVP-wise. … I have my own personal opinion about MVPs and he should deserve some consideration.”
Martinez, who had a four-homer game on Sept. 4 at Dodger Stadium, has homered in five of his past six games.