McAdam: As April wraps, Martinez and Red Sox have already proven a few things

When the season began, four whole weeks ago, no one knew quite what to expect from either the 2021 Red Sox or the 2021 J.D. Martinez.

Both had 2020 seasons to forget: Nasty, brutish, and thanks to the pandemic, short. The Red Sox finished with their worst record in more than 50 years and Martinez suffered through his worst season since he re-made his swing and salvaged his career back in 2013.

There were plenty of reasons for the dual drop-offs.

The starting rotation lost its two best starters to injury, necessitating a reliance on a handful of not-ready-for-prime-time replacements, with predictable results.

As for Martinez, he never seemed to get untracked after the three-month long pause between spring training and summer camp, and pandemic protocols robbed him of the ability to review his at-bats in-game.

Still, there were no guarantees that either the club or Martinez would rebound in 2021. Expectations were kept in check for both.

But one month in, there's reason for optimism all around. And it was only fitting that as the Red Sox finished out April with the best record in the American League (17-10), it was Martinez who led the way in their final game of the month.

His first swing of the night produced a three-run homer three batters into the game. That not only matched the Sox' meager scouring output from the previous two nights combined, it also provided enough of a cushion for the rest of the night against the Texas Rangers. The Sox would go on to win a 6-1 decision with another run coming on Martinez's second homer of the night, a solo shot in the third. But Martinez's early blow was all they would need.

And there was some neat symbolism to all of that, too. While it's been the Red Sox pitching that has been the biggest surprise of the young season, it's been Martinez who has driven the team's offense.



One month in and five to go, Martinez leads Major League Baseball in the following categories: homers (nine); RBI (25); and total bases (70). Among qualified hitters, he's second in slugging and OPS only to Mike Trout.

All of which wouldn't be so surprising except for two factors: as noted, Martinez was coming off a season in which his slugging percentage (.389) looked like some cruel misprint. And historically, he's never been a very good early-season hitter.

Not so this year.

"It's been a great start,'' said Martinez, who battled a migraine headache Thursday night but assured manager Alex Cora that he would be back in the lineup Friday. "I've been doing well. I've been hitting, been producing and we've been winning. Our team's in first place. It's been a great month. Just gotta keep this going. It's been one month.''

That's a familiar refrain for Martinez, who tends to value long-term production over short-term results. That's why he railed against the 60-game schedule last year, strongly hinting that it wasn't a fully legitimate season, or at least not an accurate measurement of a player's abilities.

At the time, it seemed like a lot of rationalizing. But with the benefit of time, Martinez was onto something. Now that a certain normalcy has returned to the game, so too has his usual production.

The Red Sox, meanwhile, not only sit atop the American League East, but also have the biggest lead of any first-place team. None of which guarantees them a spot in the postseason or even a successful regular season, with 135 games still remaining.

But there's no denying what they've accomplished to date, or ignoring the foundation they've built for themselves in what was thought to be a dreaded "bridge year.''

"Seventeen wins are seventeen wins,'' said Cora. "You do that consistently over the course of a season, you win 17 games a month, you put yourself in the conversation, right? It was a great month. It was a month when we struggled with a few things, we played well for a good period of time. But knowing that this is just a start, we still have to keep working and keep getting better.

"I'm just proud of them. The work they put in in spring training, it paid off in April. We turn the page tonight and we're gong to be ready to play tomorrow.''

May will have its own challenges, to be followed by four more months after that, all of which will test the Sox in ways that can't yet be understood.

But already, they know more about themselves than they did at the start, and that includes the status of their veteran DH, who is hitting as if 2020 never happened.