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Pool C Schedule |
Ed Randall's Talkin' Rams with Nick Martinez
San Diego, Calif. – (February 27, 2023) – With the World Baseball Classic starting next week, Fordham baseball will be represented in the tournament by former Ram Nick Martinez on Team USA.
Team USA is in Pool C of the World Baseball Classic, along with Mexico, Colombia, Canada, and Great Britain. Those games will be played in Phoenix, Arizona, March 11-15.
Martinez, who pitches for the San Diego Padres, will don the red, white, blue for the first time since the 2020 Olympics, where he helped Team USA to the silver medal. He is slated to be one of Team USA's starting pitchers.
"It's incredibly special for me to wear this uniform," Martinez said in a recent article. "... it's incredibly humbling, and it's a great honor."
Martinez is coming off a 2022 season, where he split time as both a starter and a reliever for the Padres. He made 47 appearances with 10 starts, posting a 4-4 record, eight saves, a 3.47 ERA, and 95 strikeouts in 106.1 innings pitched.
Pitching for Team USA in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, Martinez was the starting pitcher for Team USA in the gold medal game and had a solid effort against Japan, allowing one run on five hits with seven strikeouts over six innings of work. For the entire tournament, Martinez made two starts, totaling 11 innings with 16 strikeouts, surrendering just two runs.
Martinez was drafted by the Texas Rangers in the 2011 MLB Draft after three seasons at Fordham, splitting time as the Rams' starting second basemen and relief pitcher. In that time, he had a career batting average of .295 with 109 runs scored, 26 doubles, 66 RBI, and 22 stolen bases. On the hill, he appeared in a total of 15 games, posting three saves and 22 strikeouts in 26.1 innings pitched.
