Elle's Baseball Musings: Fordham's Nick Martinez Gets Game 3 in the Bronx With the Rays One Win From the ALCS
By Elle Elena ·
Nick Martinez has told this story before, and I hope he keeps telling it. When he was a junior pitching for Fordham, the team canceled a practice, so he and his roommate headed down to Yankee Stadium early for a game against the Red Sox. "Might have had a few too many adult beverages. Got kicked out. Yeah," he told MLB.com's Adam Berry back in May. The next time he saw the inside of that ballpark, he was a rookie starting for the Texas Rangers on July 22, 2014.
On Wednesday night he goes back to start Game 3 of the American League Division Series. The Rays lead the Yankees two games to none. One more win and Tampa Bay is in the AL Championship Series. It will be the first postseason start of his career, and he is 36 years old.
I remember strange little stories about players better than I remember most box scores, and this one is going straight to the top of the pile. A college kid gets walked out of the Bronx, and years later the Rays hand him the ball there with a chance to end the Yankees' season.
Kevin Cash's reasoning for the pick was simple. "It's definitely the season overall and how good we feel when he's on the mound for us, whether it's home or road," Cash said. The season backs him up. In his first year with Tampa Bay, Martinez went 15-6 with a 3.10 ERA in 31 starts and 180 innings, made his first All-Star team, and the Rays went 22-9 in the games he started. He was even better on the road, going 7-3 with a 2.38 ERA in 16 road starts. He pitched twice at Yankee Stadium this year and allowed three runs in 12 innings.
The way he gets there is worth a look. Martinez struck out 109 hitters this season and walked 26. That is not a lot of strikeouts for a starter with his innings total, and it is a very small number of walks. He gets outs on balls in play and almost never walks anybody. After Game 2 in St. Petersburg, where New York made four errors, Aaron Boone talked about "too many free baserunners." That is the one thing Martinez rarely gives anybody.
His road to this start is long, and I find it more interesting than any ranking he ever had. He grew up in Miami, pitched and hit at Fordham, and debuted with Texas in 2014. That first start in the Bronx went well, too: 5 1/3 scoreless innings. He spent four seasons with the Rangers, then went to Japan from 2018 through 2021 with the Nippon-Ham Fighters and the SoftBank Hawks. In 2021 he also pitched for Team USA at the Tokyo Olympics. He came back to the majors with San Diego in 2022, spent two years in Cincinnati, and signed with the Rays as a free agent in mid-February. Every player has a development story. His just happened to run through Japan on the way to October.
He has pitched in the postseason before, but only out of the bullpen. With the Padres in 2022 he made seven relief appearances, covering 11 innings with a 0.82 ERA. He recorded one out in relief for the Reds last October. Wednesday will be the first time he takes the mound to start a playoff game.
Here is how he put it. "I've been paying attention the last two games, so I'm fully aware of what's at stake tomorrow," Martinez said on a Zoom call from Yankee Stadium on Tuesday afternoon. "It's going to be an absolute dogfight, just like my last 31 starts." I laughed at that line.
His teammates had a lot to say. Yandy Díaz called him "the best in the world." Chandler Simpson said, "I don't know where we would be without him." Taylor Walls went the furthest: "If there was one MVP on this team, it's him." You do not usually hear a first-year starting pitcher described as the center of a clubhouse. The Rays keep describing him that way.
The Yankees will start Max Fried, who won his Wild Card start against Boston, and they will play without Aaron Judge, who is not on the Division Series roster while he recovers from a right calf strain. New York has scored two runs in two games, both on Ben Rice home runs. "(We'll be) playing for our lives on Wednesday night," Boone said. First pitch is 7 p.m. Central.
I have no idea how Game 3 will go. I do know which pitcher I will be watching in the first inning, and how many free baserunners he gives the Yankees.
-Elle