Yankees: Gerrit Cole and Adam Ottavino made JD Martinez quit baseball

It really looked like JD Martinez decided to quit before facing Yankees ace Gerrit Cole and Adam Ottavino.

JD Martinez has pummeled the Yankees enough times in his life — and surely will again someday. We know this won’t last forever.

Butttttt … while it’s still happening … let’s enjoy Gerrit Cole and Adam Ottavino stealing his will to live over and over and over and over again on Friday night, shall we?

On Friday night at the Stadium, JD looked like he wanted to be anywhere else on earth other than facing Gerrit Cole.

Yes, Cole is nasty. But it’s a fastball and a breaking ball. You’ve seen this before, in theory. Martinez, though, put up the same level of fight that Hal Steinbrenner might in a similar situation. Seemingly resigned to whiffing, Martinez swung over breakers like that was his real job.

We don’t know what’ll happen at the end of the season, but Martinez certainly opted out of all of his ABs against Cole (K, K, K, see ya tomorrow).

But thanks to a mini rally by the Red Sox against Jonathan Holder in the eighth, Martinez’s day was not done. Nice! He got to face Holder! That probably went well for him, his stuff isn’t overwhelmi–I’m sorry, what? They brought in Adam Ottavino, and Martinez acted like the ball was covered in gloop.

Didn’t even get the slider. Didn’t matter. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight.

We know the competition on the mound was top notch, but Martinez looked like Charles Barkley in Space Jam all night long, with no interest in arguing otherwise.

He competed like, I don’t know, an All-Star whose team decided to trade Mookie Betts for pennies on the dollar, then lied about his potential for re-signing?

He competed kind of like a former superstar DH who was managed by known cheater Alex Cora in 2018, his best season in MLB, but doesn’t have that security blanket anymore. Just me? I mean, kind of like that, right?

In case you’d like to read it again (I would!), Martinez’s full at-bat log is below, and it’s a doozy.

It’s not going to last forever, we’re sure of it.

But as of Friday night, JD Martinez chose to retire from baseball rather than compete against the Yankees. That’s simply true.