He was a Tri-Cities baseball star. He’s on a record RBI pace in the minor leagues

If there is one major key for Southridge High graduate Mason Martin during this current baseball season, it’s that he took better care of himself this past offseason.

“No. 1 is my preparation,” said Martin in a recent phone interview. “In the offseason I worked hard. I was making gains in the weight room, doing yoga. Conditioning myself is so important.

“If you have a 100-game season, when you get to game number 90, your body is tired. I took conditioning a lot more serious.”

It’s paid off for the 20-year-old.

Through 77 games for the Greensboro Grasshoppers (a Pittsburgh Pirates affiliate) of the Class A South Atlantic League, or SALLY League, here is what Martin has been doing:

He’s hitting .265 (75 for 283 through games of Monday night); he has 19 doubles, three triples, 21 home runs, 79 RBIs and 42 walks.

His 21 home runs and 79 RBIs easily lead the entire league; the second-most homers is 15, and the second-most RBIs is 58.

There is talk that Martin has a chance, if he keeps this pace up, to eclipse the SALLY League record of 126 RBIs.

As long as Martin gets to play baseball each day, he doesn’t care about the record.

“Baseball, honestly, was and is what I’ve always wanted to do,” said Martin. “From the time I was in coach-pitch Little League that’s what I wanted to do. I just love the game. I love the idea of playing at the highest level.”

The daily grind

And living the life of a professional minor league ballplayer, which isn’t glamorous.

“We usually get the mornings to ourselves,” Martin said. “But we have to be at the ballpark at 3 p.m. on road games, and at 2 p.m. at home.”

Still, the slugger concentrates a lot on his craft.

“I lift, do some yoga. I happen to be one of the guys who likes (yoga),” said Martin. “I picked it up on my own. I do more stretching. I used to not like to stretch. But last off-season I started doing it more.”

Martin was drafted by the Pirates in 2017 after he graduated from Southridge.

He signed, and was sent to Florida, where he played the rest of that summer with the Pirates’ Gulf Coast League team in the lowest level of minor league ball.

In 39 games, Martin hit 11 home runs and was named the league’s MVP.

Last season, though, was a little tougher for him.

Starting at West Virginia in the SALLY League, Martin struggled with a .200 batting average and just four homers. After 45 games there, the Pirates sent him down to Bristol in Tennessee to play in the Rookie-level Appalachian League.

He did better, raising his batting average to .233 and hitting 10 more round-trippers.

A better season

This season, the Pirates sent him back to the SALLY League, where their affiliation moved from West Virginia to Greensboro, N.C.

And things have been better.

One glorious day in May, Martin hit walk-off home runs in both ends of a Sunday doubleheader.

On Monday night, Martin hit a grand slam. According to John Dreker, a writer who covers Pirates prospects, the STATCAST numbers had the ball’s exit velocity at 111 mph and it traveled 449 feet.

All of that adds up to a great season for Martin, which included playing in the league’s all-star game last month.

It all comes down to preparation, he said.

“So the No. 1 thing is, physically, be prepared,” Martin said. “Preparation breeds confidence in your abilities.”

Now that doesn’t mean he hasn’t had his failures this season.

“I would say cutting down the strikeouts is the biggest thing I need to work on,” said Martin.

“I’ve been doing a good job on that this year. My two-strike approach has improved.”

Yet he admits he has work to do: He is one of the league leaders in strikeouts with 101 through Monday night.

“Sometimes the baseball looks like a grapefruit. Sometimes it looks like a golf ball,” Martin admitted. “I’m just up there at the plate looking for a pitch I can drive.”

Then he reminds the writer a perhaps overlooked fact.

“You don’t have much information on the pitcher at this level,” Martin said.

True. It’s not like in the big leagues, where technology allows a batter to see video, charts and scouting reports on the pitcher he’s going to face.

Mentally prepared

Martin said another key to his success this season is his determination.

“I knew I was going back to the SALLY League. Mentally, I was in the right spot,” Martin said.

“And the mental aspect is huge.”

Martin said he struggled last season with the mental aspect in the SALLY League.

“You get caught up in your head. The weather may not be good,” he said. “You’re worried about what the pitcher will throw. You need to have a clear mind, stay in the present moment. And you need to do it day to day.”

That’s what Martin has been doing.

Greensboro is currently 51-30. But the Grasshoppers still have another 59 games this season, not counting possible playoffs.

“It definitely is a grind,” admitted Martin. “But there are so many chances to get better.”

And he has.

Notes

• It looks like Walla Walla Community College men’s basketball coach Jeff Reinland picked up a gem this week by signing Richland’s Garrett Streufert to play this fall. Streufert was the Mid-Columbia Conference’s Player of the Year this past season. I don’t know what four-year schools are looking for, but WWCC is going to be tough this coming season with the 6-6 Streufert in the lineup.

• Richland grad Addison Doyle, who completed her two seasons playing women’s soccer for Yakima Valley College, is headed to William Jessup University this fall to play there.

• Kennewick’s Brittney Zamora finished fifth out of 15 drivers last Saturday at the K&N Series West race at Douglas County Speedway in Roseburg, Ore. Driving for Bill McAnally Racing in the NASCAR Series, Zamora sits in sixth place overall, out of 20 drivers, in the season-long standings. Zamora’s next event will again be with BMR on July 20 in Loudon, N.H., in a K&N Series East race.

• Writers Todd Milles and Andy Buhler, working for prep sports website Scorebooklive.com, have compiled a list of the top 100 high school football players coming into the 2019 season.

They’ve released the list 25 players at a time over the past few weeks, and still have 25 more to unveil next week.

But through 75 players, the Mid-Columbia has three on the list so far: sophomore RB/LB Myles Mayovsky of Kennewick; senior RB/DB Lorenzo Myrick of Royal; and senior DE/TE Isaiah Perez of Othello.

Perez verbally committed to BYU last year.