It was a rough game for J.D. Martinez despite hitting a solo home run in Saturday’s contest.
The Boston Red Sox slugger started in right field against the New York Yankees and made a costly mistake in the fourth inning when he lost Gary Sanchez’s fly ball in the sun. The ball bounced into the stands and was ruled a ground-rule double, allowing two runs to score.
The gaffe led the inning to continue and New York plated two more runs en route to a 5-1 victory at Fenway Park.
After the game, Martinez revealed he lost the ball in the “brutal” sun.
“It’s terrible,” he said. “This place, 4 o’clock game is the worst. One of the worst I’ve seen with the shadows in the outfield and hitting and right field. You pray for clouds pretty much. I don’t care if you’re a DH or an outfielder, unless you’re Superman and you have X-ray vision against sun. I don’t know. If someone could see through the sun, I guess they catch it. It was a tough play.”
Martinez also added neither him nor Brock Holt called for the ball.
“It’s a long run for me,” he said. “Look down, I feel like Brock’s got the best read on it. It’s going to be a tough play for me. It’s not one of those plays you can call right away.”
Regardless, he knows the ball “has to get caught.”
“… But it’s one of those things where it sucks. That ball has to get caught. It changed the game.”
There’s no telling what the outcome would have been, but it certainly would have been interesting to see how it would have changed had the out been made.
See all of Martinez’s postgame comments below:
