SEATTLE -- How fitting it was that in the land where Ichiro Suzuki raked a path that will eventually land him in the Hall of Fame, J.D. Martinez at last snapped a power outage that had become a source of humor within the Red Sox.

What does Martinez have to do with Ichiro?

Well, members of the Red Sox -- most notably manager Alex Cora -- had been sticking Martinez with the “Ichiro” moniker as the slugger's homer drought stretched from days to weeks, but his batting average went from .325 to .351 in the 19 consecutive games he didn’t go deep.

After the Red Sox edged the Mariners, 4-3, on Friday night at T-Mobile Park, Cora quipped, “Ichiro transformed to J.D. today.”

Martinez’s solo home run in the third inning ended a span of 92 plate appearances and 78 at-bats without a homer.

This, from a man who has 272 career homers.

The last time Martinez had that long a cup of coffee between long balls? June 23, 2013-May 18, 2014. That was back when Martinez was trying to find himself as a player and even got released by the Astros, eventually signing with the Tigers in the middle of that drought.

When Martinez got back to the dugout after his first home run trot since May 17, there was ... laughter.

“It felt good. I started laughing. Everybody was laughing about it in the dugout,” said Martinez, who has only six home runs this season but an impressive .967 OPS.

Prior to the game, former Red Sox icon Dustin Pedroia was kidding with Martinez about his new style of hitting. This, thanks to Cora, who had connected with Pedroia on a video chat and was taking his phone around the clubhouse so current Boston players could get an earful from their old teammate.

“You look like me hitting line drives the other way,” Pedroia hollered to Martinez. “Stay right there. Win a batting title.”

“He was just talking crap. He’s just Pedey,” Martinez said.

All kidding aside, what exactly happened to Martinez during this interesting stretch when he was a hit machine but lacked his usual pop?

“It’s just my swing and my bat angle. That’s been the common denominator. That’s why I’ve had success, being able to lift the ball,” Martinez said. “So it’s just been grinding on that. It’s one of those things where you get stuck in between.

“What’s the expression? You want to leave the pond when you’re catching little fish to go to a bigger pond and catch bigger fish? And then you get lost along the way. It’s one of those things where I don’t want to get too lost, because I was doing something well [hitting for average] and I was having success. But at the same time, [power] is an important part of my game.”

Yes, Martinez was one of the leaders of the new launch-angle revolution that came into MLB a few years back, and that’s what gives him a charge as a baseball player. He’s not ready to go the way of Ichiro, who hit 117 homers in 10,734 at-bats in MLB.

If not for all the ribbing from teammates, Martinez might not have even been aware of his batting average. Clearly, that’s not what makes him tick.

“I just try to look at the hard contact, that’s it,” Martinez said.

Agent Scott Boras, who represents the 34-year-old Martinez, a free agent this coming offseason, had minimal concern when the righty slugger stopped leaving the yard for a bit.

“His metrics are awesome,” Boras told MLB.com in Anaheim earlier this week. “Line-drive rate, his barrel rate, sweet-spot rate, all these things are like he’s 28 in his prime. Great hitter.”

The way it works with power hitters, nobody will be surprised if Friday winds up being the start of a surge of homers for Martinez.

“We know he’s going to start hitting the ball in the air and the ball is going to go and he’s going to be the hitter that we always see,” Cora said. “This version of J.D. is still really good, with the on-base percentage and grinding out at-bats.”

But the best version of Martinez is the guy who clears the fences.