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

Adam Weinrib
Adam Weinrib

Yanks Go Yard

Gerrit Cole #45 of the New York Yankees in action against the Philadelphia Phillies at Yankee Stadium on August 03, 2020 in New York City. The Yankees defeated the Phillies 6-3. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

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.

Adam Weinrib

Adam Weinrib

Adam Weinrib is a Content Director on the FanSided network, and has been the co-editor at Yanks Go Yard for 6 years. He also co-hosts The Baseball Insiders Podcast thrice weekly, alongside FanSided MLB insider Robert Murray, as well as the Yanks Go Yard Podcast. Previously, he was a Senior Editor at 12up.com, and has been covering MLB and NFL for 10 years. He was also a headline and features contributor at ClickHole and Onion Sports, as well as the Associate Producer of the ESPN 30 for 30 film "Believeland". An avowed fan of the New York sports teams -- specifically the Yankees -- as well as the North Carolina Tar Heels, you can find Adam complaining mid-game on Twitter, as well as on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn if the game goes really poorly.