The Papi dilemma
More than any player in franchise history, David Ortiz taught even the most cynical Red Sox fans that refusing to give up sometimes results in the sweetest rewards.
So the inclination is to resist giving up on him. The man deserves that much, at least under normal circumstances.
Of course, there’s a particularly cruel catch here: The circumstances are no longer normal; they are dire. And believing in the artist formerly known as Big Papi has become an increasingly difficult task even for the most optimistic Red Sox fan.
I’m sure you require no in-depth recap of his sad capers through the season’s first 35 games, which is cool since I don’t particularly feel like giving you one. So here’s the Reader’s Digest condensed version: He’s batting .208. His next home run this spring will be his first. He’s been wandering between lost and hopeless all season. It’s a challenge to recall more than two or three times when he has hit the ball hard all season. He’s not getting better, but he might be getting worse. Any further detail would just be piling on.
The tipping point came during yesterday’s aggravating 12-inning loss to the Angels in which Ortiz had one of the most dismal offensive performances in the history of the Red Sox. He went 0 for 7, stranding a club-record 12 baserunners, which I’m fairly sure is more than A-Rod has left on base in all of his tense Octobers combined. In the aftermath, a dejected Ortiz said the words that many of us feel guilty for thinking:
“I’m sorry, guys. I just don’t feel like talking right now,” he told the media. “Just put down, ‘Papi stinks.’ “
It’s hard to deny his sad sentiments, though one can’t fault him for not wanting to answer questions right now — especially the three most difficult ones:
Why is this happening now? What caused it? And is there any hope of recovering from this?
Perhaps he doesn’t hold the answers. Perhaps he’s as puzzled as the rest of us. Perhaps there are details he would prefer not to share. But because his career has devolved into one enormous question mark, we are left with nothing but some common facts and a heaping helping of speculation to try and solve this mystery.
Maybe effects of last summer’s wrist injury, or the various other ailments he’s endured the past couple of years (knees, shoulder) have conspired to slow him down. Maybe this is another example, like Mo Vaughn and Cecil Fielder before him, of an enormous, one-dimensional slugger losing his bat speed overnight. Maybe he’s older than his listed age of 33 (he signed with the Mariners in 1992 at the age of 16, wink-wink). Or maybe it’s something more sinister, something that has irreparably damaged the reputations of so many of his power-hitting peers.
I do not believe that is the issue here, though. I do not believe that David Ortiz’s wonderful legacy in Boston was built fraudulently. I do not believe he used performance-enhancing drugs. I believe he was a natural power hitter who was miscast, undervalued and injury prone in Minnesota, where he put up decent power numbers despite Tom Kelly’s bizarre intention to turn him into Rich Becker.
When he joined the Red Sox in 2003, they were the right team at the right time, though it took Grady Little an entire spring to realize as much. It did not, however, take Ortiz long to become a folk hero, and he thrived here two full seasons before steroid testing was implemented in March 2005. Ortiz has hit 158 regular-season home runs since then. If his strength and success was the result of some PED cocktail, he did a fine job of hiding it the last four seasons.
Of course, I might have had the same faith in Manny Ramirez two weeks ago, so who really knows? Everyone — everyone — who played in the Steroid Era is under some degree of suspicion these days, though the only thing more frustrating than Papi’s struggles is the glee that some take in carelessly guessing at the cause.
Here’s one more question: Where to from here? For starters, if it wasn’t apparent before, it should have become so yesterday: He needs to move out of the No. 3 hole, immediately. If Terry Francona — whom Papi referred to as his “father” just a week or so ago — doesn’t have the heart to do it, then the order must come from above. Tell him he’s dropping to seventh, give him a few days off to clear his head, perhaps even do what the D-Backs did with struggling Conor Jackson and put him on the DL with “general illness.” In Papi’s case, that could apply to his bat.
We’ve run out of ways to justify Ortiz’s extended slump/collapse/decline, to explain it away, to convince ourselves that the old Papi or even a reasonable facsimile is just an adjustment or two away. He needs to try solve this problem down the lineup or down the coast.
Man, how we want to have faith in the friendly man with the big smile, the bigger swing, and the knack for delivering in the biggest moments. But right now, it’s the bottom of the ninth, the scoreboard tells a bleak tale, and there are no glimmers of hope that such faith will be rewarded.
David Ortiz is struggling terribly. If you’re a Red Sox fan of more than a few trendy years, you’re struggling right there with him.
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