It’s wild to think it would take 13 seasons and 320 home runs before J.D. Martinez hit his first walk-off homer. But when the slugger catapulted the Mets to a 3-2 win over the MiamiMarlins on Thursday night with a two-run blast in the ninth inning, it was his first walk-off shot.
If you didn’t know that fact, you’re not alone.
“I couldn’t believe it when I was told,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “I’ve seen this guy play for so many years, have a pretty successful career and is a pretty good hitter. Happy for him, obviously we needed that. It was good.”
Martinez definitely knew it was his first walk-off home run. His family and friends have bothered him for years that he never had one before Thursday. In fact, messages saying “it only took him 13 years” or some variation of it lit up the slugger’s phone when he got back to the clubhouse.
Despite the ribbing, Martinez was happy for the moment.
“Never done it before, didn’t know how to act when I hit it, coming home and stuff,” Martinez explained after the game. “Definitely cool. Hit a lot of late-inning home runs and big hits, but never a walk-off homer.”
Thursday’s home run was not only the first of the walk-off variety in the 36-year-old’s career -- it was his first walk-off RBI since April 2021, when he was a member of the Boston Red Sox.
Although Martinez said he wasn’t sure it was gone off the bat -- the perils of playing at Citi Field -- he had a good feeling it was.
On the fifth pitch of his at-bat against Marlins closer Tanner Scott, Martinez lined an 87 mph slider over the right-center field wall to save the Mets from a brutal series loss to a team below them in the standings.
Before Martinez’s homer, the Mets had two hits -- one being a Martinez double -- and scored just one run, a day after putting up a 10 spot. The inconsistency from the team is one reason for their 30-37 record, but the slugger feels Thursday’s win could be something that gets them going.
“We’ve been grinding all year,” he said. “[Luis Severino] pitching a great job, [Edwin] Diaz back and getting him back to how he knows how to pitch. He’s going to be huge for us going forward. We can get on a roll here.”
The Mets were being no-hit into the sixth inning on Thursday, but Severino gave the team six innings of one-run ball to keep the game close. And Diaz, fresh off the IL, pitched a 1-2-3 ninth inning to give Martinez and the rest of the hitters a chance at a win.
After taking two of three from the Marlins, the San Diego Padres come into town for three.
If the Mets, who are still just 3.0 games out of the final Wild Card spot, want to make a run, they’ll need to continue to string together wins. They have gone 8-4 in their last 12 games, and face a challenge against the Padres this weekend.
“Any time you win games, especially that way, it’s important. Winning a series and now we have another good team coming here. We’ll be ready ready,” Mendoza said of the magnitude of the win. “We’ve had tough losses but the guys continue to show up, continue to battle, continue to fight, and tonight we saw it.
“On a night it was hard for us offensively, we found a way and we won a baseball game.”