When David Ortiz struck out on July 27th against the Orioles, he lost mind, massacring a dugout phone before racing back out onto the field as he tried to get at home plate umpire: Brian O-Nora.
Almost exactly 1 month later when that same David Ortiz struck out on August 29th, he didn't break anything. He didn't massacre any clubhouse equipment nor did he race out and try to rip the umpire who had called him out to shreds. When David Ortiz struck out amidst a recent August 29th loss, he lowered his head, sliding the bat further into his hand and walking out of the batter's box.
But while Papi didn't go insane, the fans watching his strikeout might have wanted to. In that situation, the Sox were down 3-2 in the bottom of the 8th inning but had the tying run on 3rd base the only problem was after Ortiz struck out there were 3 outs in the inning and Boston's rally was done.
“Even Papi struggles,” Ortiz said. “I’ll be back.”
"I'll be back" Ortiz said, but when you think about it, in order to be "back", you have to have gone first...and David Ortiz has been gone for a long time. Ortiz has not notched a hit in 22 straight at bats and 6 starts. What’s worse is that in that time, he had just 1 walk and 1 sac fly. Long story short, Ortiz has not been the name behind Boston's recent 6 and 3 run and that is a problem.
"He doesn't feel comfortable." ESPN Boston writer Joe McDonald wrote earlier today.
“Not good,” Ortiz said. “But I’ll be all right. I’m just missing some pitches, but I’ll be fine. I’ll be back.”
This recent slide has dropped Ortiz's once impenetrable .333 average of a couple weeks ago to just .310 while further punishing his OBP by dropping it almost 22 percentage points. But Ortiz and the Red Sox are not new commers to the confusing slide. Just a few weeks ago, we were talking about Mike Napoli.
For almost an entire month, the Sox 1st basemen had struggled to do anything at the plate strikeing out an astronomical 18 times in his first 12 games of August. By August 14th's game against the Blue Jays many were calling for his head but in the blink of an eye everything change. With 2 outs in the ninth inning, Napoli got under a bad fastball over the middle of the plate driving the ball high and deep to right field, all as he represented the tying run in a game dominated by the Jays. That ball left the yard and for the first time in so many games of strikeouts and failure, Mike Napoli was the hero.
In the 7 games since that homer, Mike has complied 7 hits 2 of which were additional home runs. He has also doubled once and officially proved that yes, one swing can easily end even the worst of all slumps. So by that logic, all that Papi needs is a home run. That won’t be hard as we all know that even now, David Ortiz is a far superior slugger than Mike Napoli.
“Sometimes,” he said. “Now, when I go 11-for-11, like I did before, you better come and ask me questions too.” Ortiz said.
The streak he was speaking of in that quote was a dominant 15 game hitting streak to kick off the season that meant by the end of it he led all of baseball with a batting average of .500.
Baseball is a stop and go sport. One second you are rolling strong...a singles, doubles or home run machine all before in the blink of an eye it is all gone. It happens to the best and the worst of them all but in the end, all of these streaks, good or bad, come to a close.
One can only hope that Ortiz's ends sooner rather than later.
0 comments:
Post a Comment