J.D. Martinez has had a down year at the plate, and with the season nearing an end, he knew he didn’t have much to lose.
So he decided to make a change.
The Red Sox designated hitter homered in Boston’s 5-3 win over the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night. It was just the 12th homer of the season for Martinez, but it appears a mechanical change did the trick.
“Honestly, I just went back to some feels I had, looking at video back in 2014,” Martinez told Joe Castiglione and Will Flemming after the game, as transcribed by WEEI. “I was like, ‘You know what, I’m going to try this today.’ I told everybody. ‘I was like, I’m doing something different. What’s the worst that can happen, I go 0-for-4?’ I was like, ‘I have been 0-for-4 a million times this year. I’m good. Let’s try something new.’
“It was something different. A different feel that I have tried, and it paid off. Obviously, it was a mechanical thing. It feels like it was huge, but it’s really not. When you kind of look at it on film, you’re like, ‘It’s not that really big of a difference.’ But to me, the way it feels, it looks like it’s enormous.”
Martinez long has taken pride in being a “trained hitter” and constantly watches his own batting practice and at-bats in order to correct the wrongs. And with how he’s been performing at the plate, and with the postseason all but mathematically out of reach, it was worth trying something new to see if it paid off.
We’ll see if Martinez carries the change into Wednesday’s finale against the Reds. First pitch is set for 6:40 p.m. ET and you can catch all the action beginning at 5:30 p.m. on NESN.
