J.D. Martinez, Rafael Devers fighting through injuries to carry Red Sox offense

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — J.D. Martinez was walking gingerly on his sprained ankle before Friday’s game.

Rafael Devers couldn’t stop himself on his follow-through in the early innings as his right arm, which appears to be injured, but has been vaguely discussed as “not 100%” by manager Alex Cora. Whenever he swings and misses, his body flings around in a full circle. He often drops the bat, shakes out his arm, then collects himself and takes his time getting back into the box.

The two of them looked quite hampered, hurting and hardly themselves.

Without them, the entire lineup would look different. With them, the Sox offense looked relentless once again.

Martinez and Devers combined to go 5-for-9 with two home runs, five RBIs and a pair of walks to power the Red Sox offense in a 14-6 victory over the Rays in Game 2 of the American League Division Series at Tropicana Field on Friday night.

Martinez and Cora were quick to credit the medical staff for getting Martinez ready to play on an ankle he could barely walk on a day earlier.

“Thursday I didn’t feel it,” Martinez said. “I told (Cora), I said, ‘I got like a putter and an iron today with my golf swing. The driver and the 3-wood is not in the bag today.’ So he is, like, ‘all right, all right. Pinch-hit later on in the game for a Judy hit.’ I said, ‘there you go.’

“Friday in BP it felt a lot better. I was able to swing and actually get into my front foot. So I told him, ‘let’s do it.’”

It might not be the “bloody sock,” but watching Martinez hammer a hanging slider over the center-field fence while leaning back on his one good ankle was certainly inspiring to the guys around him on Friday night.

“We didn’t have a good night Thursday night, and with our lineup, it’s just kind of a matter of time,” Kiké Hernandez said. “Just having his presence there in the lineup. He is not just one of our best hitters, but he has been one of the best hitters in baseball for a few years now. Not enough can be said about what J.D. did.”

It wasn’t until an hour before gametime that Martinez walked off the field and told a few reporters he thought he was going to play. But to hedge the Red Sox’ bets, he told Cora to hit somebody else behind Devers in order to give him some protection in case Martinez had to leave the game early.

“I don’t want to be in a spot where if I come out of the game we leave Devers out to dry,” he said. “So he was aware of that, and I told him that, and that’s why he kind of chose to put me behind (Alex) Verdugo today just in case.”

Verdugo protected Devers with a three-hit game, and Martinez protected Verdugo with a four-hit game behind him.

“I think when I’m in there, I kind of just stretch the lineup out a little bit more,” Martinez said. “We have a lot of good hitters on this team, and you extend the middle of the order just a little bit longer, it makes a big difference.”

Devers appeared to be frustrated with himself after a first-inning strikeout in which he swung wildly and missed at one pitch, doing a complete 360-degree turn in the process as his bat came around and hit himself in the back.

Two pitches later, he gingerly swung at a pitch outside the zone using just his arms. It was an ugly strikeout, and not one we’re used to seeing from the Sox’ most productive hitter this year.

His next time up, he swung wildly again and missed at a fastball above the zone. It looked painful.

Two pitches later, he hammered one to the center-field warning track that was caught by Kevin Kiermaier up against the wall in spectacular fashion.

He walked his next two times up, then got a low changeup in the eighth inning and blasted it over the wall for a two-run shot.

It was a remarkable display of hitting from a pair of playoff-experienced players on the big stage, injuries or not.

“The hitters, they just didn’t stop,” Verdugo said. “They were relentless.”

The Sox were blanked and Thursday, got nothing from their starting pitchers and are still returning to Fenway Park on Sunday with a 1-1 tie and home-field advantage in the final three games.

“Obviously, being down 0-2 in a five-game series would be tough,” Verdugo said. “We know the odds wouldn’t be good. I think realistically we wanted to come in here and split it. We wanted to win one. Obviously, we want to win both of them, but you give them the benefit of the doubt. This is their home park, all that.

“I’m very excited. I think we’re all happy, man. Riding high right now. Just we did our job. We came out here, overcame a deficit again. You know, our bats came up. Our pitchers came up big, and now we’re going back to Fenway in our element with our crowd and just our home ballpark.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3FsWYNT