FORT MYERS, Fla. -- After his first round of batting practice with his new team, J.D. Martinez had a confession: He wasn't ready.
"I'm not. I haven't won a game yet," Martinez said. "I've been getting my butt whooped."
What the hitter was referencing was ping-pong (there is a table in the middle of the Red Sox' clubhouse), but it probably wasn't far off from how he feels in the batting cage.
Due to the uncertainty regarding his medical condition while finishing up his five-year, $110 million contract last week, Martinez lost a good amount of the momentum he had accrued throughout the offseason.
"I was ready and now it feels like, where am I at? Hopefully, I can iron some stuff out," Martinez said. "Right now it's about controlling the volume because you just want to dive in and do it and go out but you have to hold yourself back a little bit and increase your volume a little bit."
Martinez's plan is to spend a few days acclimating himself into camp before participating in some live batting practice sessions. If all goes well, the righty hitter might get a chance to dive into Grapefruit League action next week.
"I feel, health-wise, great. As far as readiness, game ready, I don't know," Martinez said. "Alex [Cora] kind of left it up to me. just, you tell me kind of tell me kind of deal. I'm kind of leaving it up to the strength coach. We ran today. Start trying to run a little bit more and build up. These guys have been around for two weeks before they got into a game. you can't help, when you get into a game, you hit a ball, your adrenaline is going to want to take off, so we're just trying to ease in a little bit."
So, where is Martinez at right now in terms of his readiness?
"That's a good question. I don't know," he said. "I think I'll just kind of get in there. I haven't seen breaking balls. I haven't seen velocity. You can face a machine but a machine is not an arm. It's obviously different. It takes time. I'm usually rough during spring training. My spring training numbers aren't very good but I never expect them to be. Kind of finding it, that's what spring training is for, to work on stuff and get ready."
