FORT MYERS, Fla. - It was March 3. It was Chris Martin's first spring training appearance. It was a game that didn't count. Yet, it still was noteworthy.
Just once in his seven years in the major leagues had Martin walked as many as two men in one an outing. Once. And that came way back in 2018.
Yet, in this first go-round with the 2023 Red Sox Martin found himself issuing a pair of free passes in his one inning against the Astros at JetBlue Park. It was definitely different. In fact, there was little that felt normal for the 36-year-old.
Why? Welcome to the weird world of the pitch clock.
"Not what I thought," said Martin of his JetBlue Park debut. "But, like I said, it’s there. You either figure it out or continue to be mentally going too fast."
While so much attention was placed on how teammate Kenley Jansen - the league's slowest pitcher in 2022 - was going to handle the pitch clock, few were worried about Martin. But the big righty offered some insight into how this new way of doing things is going to be a work in progress all the way up until the March 28 opener.
"It’s tough when you come set and you have to make a pitch and in the corner of your eye you see the clock. But those are the things you need to figure it out," Martin explained of the clock, that gives pitchers 15 seconds to deliver the baseball with nobody on base, and 20 seconds with runners on.
"I think when I first got into the game I felt a little rushed. Talking with some of the other guys, as a reliever coming into the game we just need to be hot and ready. And when we get out there we don’t need to throw as many to warm up. We need to catch our breath from warming up and running into the game. We need to catch our breath and start focusing on making pitches. Once I got it down I noticed toward the end the end of the outing I had a lot of time left and I was still working fast. Now I just have to find that happy medium. I was going too slow and then I was going too fast."
Simply put, for the first time in a long time, the strike-throwing machine found himself worrying about the wrong things when on a major league mound.
"I was trying to pitch out the pitch clock and seeing how much time I had and things like that instead of focusing on pitching," he said. "I was kind of worried about that, having to physically look at the clock and see what the time was. It would be nice if you could hear it or something. It is what it is."
As for Jansen, there were no issues, whatsoever. The closer never came close to seeing his time expire while cruising through a 1-2-3 inning.
"His plan was to get warmed up and not throw as many in the warm ups in the game and kind of catch his breath. I was doing my normal routine and it has to be tweaked a little bit. Kenley had a good plan. He said it worked," Martin explained.
"You are taught your whole career to slow the game down when the game speeds up on you. Baseball doesn’t look fast but it can get going really fast and you’re taught to take a step back, breath, think about it. Now you’re going to have to figure it out."
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