84 CARDINALS MAGAZINE @CardsMagazine
tall but can’t stand still. The gyrations begin.
He waggles his bat continuously, first in a
windmill motion, pointing it at Arrieta, then
back and forth over his right shoulder. He
taps his front foot, bends his back knee and
gently bobs his head until Arrieta comes set.
The objective of all that movement,
Martinez maintains, is simply to put him in
the best position to hit – and to keep him
from thinking too much.
“One hundred percent, all that moving
keeps me busy and relaxes me,” he says. “If
I wasn’t to do that, you know what I would
be doing? I would be thinking, ‘Am I ready,
what is going to be the pitch, what is going
to be the location?’ That’s not good for me.
When you start to overthink, you are in
trouble.”
By the time Arrieta, or any pitcher,
makes his delivery, Martinez has mostly
cooled the rocking and rolling and is ready
to unleash, flexing his front foot, raising
it and then planting it as his bat comes
through the zone.
“He’s ready to attack,” Cardinals batting
coach John Mabry says. “He’s where he
wants to be, where he wants to launch from,
and where he wants to see the ball from. All
that movement is just finding a rhythm.
“It’s his way of relaxing, even though it
doesn’t look relaxing to other folks.”
On a 2-2 changeup from Arrieta,
Martinez shows off his wingspan and
tremendous plate coverage, reaching toward
the outside corner to poke the delivery to
the opposite field for a single that scores
Tommy Pham and puts the Cardinals up
2-0 on their way to a 12-4 victory. It’s the
first of four hits for Martinez, who also
crushes a two-run homer to center and
two-run double to finish with five RBIs.
Relax, he’s got this.‘WHO IS THIS GUY?’
Jose Alberto Martinez provides a classic
example of a baseball adage: You hit, you
play. The 29-year-old from Venezuela has
progressed from career farmhand (11 years
in the minors) to starting first baseman
since making his big-league debut two
Septembers ago. Since that first game, his
.314 average (through June 7) ranks firstA leg kick is one of the more conventional moves in Martinez’s menagerie of motion inside
the batter’s box. But once his spectacle of windmilling, bat-wagging and foot-flexing has
run its course, the Cardinals first baseman is “relaxed” and ready to rip.
Moves like