It’s no secret that J.D. Martinez has a lot of power behind his swing.
The Boston Red Sox slugger has a league-best 20 home runs while batting .318 with 52 RBIs and 71 hits thus far through the 2018 Major League Baseball season.
And if you look at a spray chart of where in the field Martinez has hit his home runs, it’ll show a near-perfect split of 10 homers to the left of center field and 10 to the right of center field.
Sox skipper Alex Cora joined WEEI’s “Dale and Keefe” on Wednesday to discuss who he thought the slugger’s power to all fields reminded him of. Host Rich Keefe said he never had seen someone who utilized the field the way Martinez does, besides former Red Sox outfielder, Manny Ramirez.
“That’s the guy,” Cora said when asked if he would compare the power of the two players. “Guys that can hit .300 with power and put the ball in play with men in scoring position like J.D. does … he wants his RBIs, he understands what it takes to get his RBIs.”
Ramirez is a pretty solid player to be compared to. The former Sox left fielder is a career .312 hitter with 555 home runs and 1,831 RBIs over a 19-year MLB career. He utilized every part of the ballpark in order to put the ball in play and drive in runs.
Judging by Martinez’s numbers thus far, Cora certainly wasn’t wrong about his right-handed batter wanting his RBIs — he’s batting .339 with runners in scoring position with six home runs.
It (hopefully) will be a while before it is known just how the two compare to one another after Martinez calls it a career. But one thing’s for certain: the Red Sox will enjoy the power of Martinez’s red-hot bat while it lasts.
