Boston Red Sox slugger J.D. Martinez is now no longer all that feeble to taking part in defense. He’s, regardless of all the pieces, customarily a chosen hitter. So per chance because of this he ran staunch into a chunk agonize by stumbling over a spoiled whereas heading to the outfield on Sunday.
Martinez’s space changed into left unclear for Tuesday’s AL wild-card game against the visiting New York Yankees after he sprained his left ankle and changed into removed from a 7-5 victory over the Washington Nationals in Boston’s regular-season finale.
Since the Nationwide League would no longer notify a DH in games played in its stadiums — a rule that will alternate as rapidly as next season — Martinez changed into taking part in in upright topic against Washington.
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And it changed into on what might per chance most certainly most certainly additionally just mute had been a routine inch to that situation, glove in hand for the underside of the fifth inning, that Martinez, smartly, place his foot in it, in an effort to talk.
“He stepped on the accumulate and crooked the ankle,” Boston manager Alex Cora talked about. “He grinded that inning defensively.”
This changed into easiest the seventh game in all of 2021 that Martinez began in upright topic. He changed into in the starting lineup as a DH for 113 games and since the left fielder for 28.
Martinez changed into changed by pinch hitter José Iglesias in the dwell of the sixth, and as part of a assortment of defensive switches to epic for that switch, Hunter Renfroe shifted from heart topic to upright in the underside of that inning.
“The fellows stepped up. That’s what we invent,” Cora talked about. “Any individual goes down, any individual has to lag in and invent the job.”
Martinez is a key part of Boston’s lineup. He began Sunday with a .286 common, an AL-main 42 doubles, 28 homers and 99 RBIs.
As for whether Martinez will to find a contrivance to play in Tuesday night’s take-or-lag-residence game against the rival Yankees at Fenway Park, Cora talked about Sunday: “I don’t know. We’ll know more in a while tomorrow.”
