Russell Martin officially hit rock bottom when he tore his hip flexor muscle a few days ago, sidelining him for the rest of the season. The once fan favorite turned a half slide, half lunge towards home plate into the fall of Russell Martin.
It seems like only yesterday Martin was batting .300 and coming off an 18 home run season, which included a start in the 2008 All-Star game at Yankee Stadium.
The Dodgers resigned him to a one-year deal, not knowing that Martin would begin his spiraling downfall as a player. Since 2008, he has significantly dropped his averages in nearly every offensive statistical category, and we all saw a significant decrease in power.
At first we thought it was that typical baseball slump that might go away with some refining in the swing, or perhaps a different way of approaching your at-bat. But it soon became an evident reality: Russell Martin’s power is gone.
Last season, he did not hit his first home run until June 20 against the Los Angeles Angels. I was at that game and let me tell you: it was not a pretty home run. The 340-foot shot down the left-field line would have been a flyout in practically every other ballpark, and Dodger fans all began to believe it might be gradually coming back.
But this was only a fluke. He struggled offensively the rest of the season, and finished with a measly .253 batting average with 7 home runs and 53 RBI’s.
Still, Martin felt obligated to file for arbitration during his arbitration-eligible year, and surprisingly won, upping his salary to 5 million dollars.
But this year’s injury was the fat lady singing, the butter getting hard, the jello giggling. It was the end of Russell Martin as a Dodger.
A disappointing finish to a man with so much potential, so much swagger as he gracefully squatted behind home plate, waving his fingers around to signal the call, sliding over to block a nasty slider that dove into the dirt like a gopher diving through a gopher hole. But it still wasn’t the same Russell Martin.
The fan favorite who insisted on carrying the load, playing everyday, and consistently playing everyday to help his team win. The Russell Martin who put a “J” as a dedication to his mother’s maiden name, and the same Russell Martin, that nobody Canadian who rose up the Dodgers farm system, landing a spot on the roster, and becoming quite arguably one of the best catchers in the game.
But not anymore. The promising catcher, a gold-glover, will sit the rest of his Dodgers career on the bench, trying to figure out what happened the past two years.
The symbolism of the hip flexor injury is so compelling that Dodger fans were not in the least bit of shock after discovering number 55 would not be behind home plate.
A young man who still refused to go despite the injury, and the same player who caught another five innings with a torn muscle in his hip before even he finally gave in.
When Hung Chi-Kuo came in to relief, Martin admitted to Torre that he could not move in time to block Kuo’s sliders. This marked the end of a once promising prospect that will be no more.
Where his future stands, who knows. All that Dodger fans know is that something unexplainable overtook Martin’s offensive abilities, and haunted him until he could play no more.
As an arbitration-eligible player after this season, the Dodgers will most likely, and rightfully so, be unwilling to risk the demands of Martin’s salary for another injury, but more importantly, another year of offensive struggles, a lack of power, and a complete non-threat at the plate. If you ask me, Martin should have slid into home that fateful night in San Francisco.