J.D. Martinez is playing catch-up.
The Boston Red Sox officially signed Martinez to a five-year contract Monday, one week after reportedly agreeing to a deal with the All-Star slugger. He participated in his first full team workout Tuesday in Fort Myers, Fla., even taking some cuts on the main field at JetBlue Park.
It might not take long for Martinez to get acclimated — he already was spotted playing ping pong with his new teammates in the clubhouse Tuesday morning — but he admits there’s some rust he needs to shake off in the coming weeks as he prepares for his first season with Boston.
“I feel, health-wise, great,” Martinez told reporters Tuesday in Fort Myers, according to MLB.com. “As far as readiness, (being) game ready, I don’t know. (Red Sox manager) Alex (Cora) kind of left it up to me.
“I’m kind of leaving it up to the strength coach. We ran today. Start trying to run a little bit more and build up. These guys have been around for two weeks before they got into a game. You can’t help it, when you get into a game, you hit a ball, your adrenaline is going to want to take off, so we’re just trying to ease in a little bit.”
The Red Sox’s first full-squad workout took place Feb. 17, and they played their first spring training games last Thursday. Martinez just now is getting down to business with his new team, though, as he needed to undergo a series of medical tests last week before his contract could be finalized.
“I was ready and now it feels like, ‘Where am I at?’ Hopefully I can iron some stuff out,” Martinez said. “Right now, it’s about controlling the volume because you just want to dive in and do it and go out, but you have to hold yourself back a little bit and increase your volume a little bit.”
Ideally, the Red Sox would have finalized Martinez’s contract last week, allowing him to arrive at spring training sooner. But the organization obviously wanted to be cautious with Martinez, who missed 85 games the last two seasons. The Red Sox are paying a lot of money — potentially $110 million — for his services, and they wanted to protect themselves against potential complications with Martinez’s previously injured right foot.
So, will the delayed arrival hinder Martinez at all? Only time will tell. But fortunately for him and the Red Sox, there’s still about a month before Opening Day.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen breaking balls. I haven’t seen velocity,” Martinez said. “You can face a machine, but a machine is not an arm. It’s obviously different. It takes time. I’m usually rough during spring training. My spring training numbers aren’t very good, but I never expect them to be.
“Just kind of finding it — that’s what spring training is for, to work on stuff and get ready.”
Martinez is expected to start playing in games sometime next week, according to Cora, at which point we might have a better read as to where exactly the 30-year-old is in his preparation.
