Leonys Martin is starting to turn things around at the plate, and he's one of the few Rangers batters who are doing so.
He won Sunday afternoon's game in Anaheim with one swing of the bat with a solo homer in the 11th inning to salvage a game from the Angels, and he did plenty of other things against the Angels — good and bad.
On Saturday, for instance, Martin had two outfield assists in the Rangers' loss to the Angels — the first time an outfielder had accomplished that since Yoenis Cespedes last May, according to the Dallas Morning News' Evan Grant. Despite his tendency to take some bad angles in the field, there is no denying Martin's prowess once the ball is in his left hand, and that showed on Saturday.
On Sunday, before his game-winning homer, he had a stolen base and then was thrown out after a bone-headed blunder, something Rangers fans have grown accustomed to seeing from time to time from Martin, when he tried to steal third base with the Rangers' best hitter, Prince Fielder, at the plate.
“For an elite, championship-level team, you don’t have these kinds of things,” Rangers manager Jeff Banister told the Morning News. “Mistakes are going to happen. Those are coaching moments that you need to take advantage of. Those are the types of plays you work to eliminate.”
It was a good glimpse of all the good and bad from Martin, and I'm sure we'll see plenty of all of it throughout the season.
