Blue Jays’ Orelvis Martinez receives MiLB Prospect Team of the Week honour following five-homer performance

Martinez has been virtually unstoppable at the plate thus far, recording a hit in 17 of his first 18 games with the Bisons this season. He’s currently hitting .333/.392/.681 with six home runs, 18 RBIs and a 168 wRC+.

“I’ve just been really confident,” Martinez said through interpreter Justin Echevarria in a recent interview with The Herd Chronicles’ Brian Frank. “It’s kind of like see ball, hit ball – and trust my plan.”

The right-handed-hitting infielder has been scorching balls early on, as evidenced by his eye-popping average exit velocity (92.3 m.p.h.), hard-hit rate (52.7 per cent) and barrel rate (14.5 per cent). He leads all qualified Bisons hitters (min. 50 plate appearances) in average exit velocity and barrel rate, placing second in hard-hit rate behind Cam Eden (59 per cent).

But it wasn’t just Martinez’s bat that was on display. While he’s committed five errors in 15 starts at second base, he ended a bases-loaded jam with an impressive catch on a liner up the middle in Sunday’s affair, helping preserve Buffalo’s one-run lead in the seventh inning.

With an offensive explosion like this, many have begun to wonder when Martinez might start to supply some of that power at the big-league level. But that opportunity may have to wait until an injury arises without a clear path onto the Blue Jays’ 26-man roster.

In 125 games last season, Martinez hit 28 home runs and 94 RBIs while slashing .243/.340/.496 with a 114 wRC+ between double-A and triple-A. He walked 12.5 per cent of the time while striking out at a 23.4 per cent clip.