J.D. Martinez entered Sunday’s series finale in Milwaukee hitless in his last 35 at-bats. But Mets manager Carlos Mendoza had the 37-year-old in the lineup after taking a day off as the DH.
When asked before the game if he was hesitant about going back to the veteran in a game the Mets needed to win to keep their postseason hopes alive, the manager said, “Not at all.”
After hitting the ball hard (98.8 mph off the bat) for a loud out his first time up, Martinez broke his slump with a bit of fortune: lining a double off the third base bag in the Mets’ 5-0 win setting up a doubleheader on Monday in Atlanta.
“We signed this guy in the offseason for games like this,” Mendoza said before the game. “He’s done it before, he’s been in a lot of meaningful games and it’s about time for him to have a huge game. And we’re pretty confident and comfortable with him there.
“He’s been in this league for a long time and had a pretty good career. That’s why he’s in there.”
Martinez, who came around to score on a Francisco Alvarez single to double the Mets’ lead, finished the day 2-for-5, adding a single in the ninth, but the promising takeaway: all four balls he put in play were hit hard, with two producing exit velocities of over 100 mph.
Before the game, Mendoza said he knew the veteran was close to breaking out because of the way he was “hitting the ball.”
“The way the bat is coming through the hitting zone. There’s conviction there, there’s some good signs as of late,” the managers said. “This is a professional hitter, he’s a really good hitter and there’s a reason why he’s here.”
And for a second straight day, the Mets will play a crucial game (in this case two) to decide their fate, these are the citations Martinez was brought in for.
“We gotta keep it the same. We can’t put pressure on ourselves,” Martinez said. “I’ve been saying this since we sucked and everybody kind of wrote us off. We don’t have any pressure. We weren’t supposed to be here. We just can’t get here now and all of the sudden put pressure on ourselves.”
He added the Mets have to continue to keep things loose with them playing better when they are all messing around with each other in the clubhouse and listening to Jose Iglesias’ “OMG” and “making fun of him and stuff like that and having a good time.”
Down the stretch, the veteran had felt the pressure building.
“I could kind of feel it when we were in Atlanta and when we came here right away. You could kind of see it. It’s just one of those things where everybody knows what’s at stake,” Martinez said. “But I think the best teams know how to control those emotions and those situations and that’s something that I think we gotta do and have to do, especially, if we want to get in and go deep in this thing.”
