David Ortiz needs to go! It's getting very close to that time. I want him to hit. I want each random double that he smokes to really be the sign that Papi is back. Castiglione and Francona and Remy all insist that these two-base hits portend a hot streak that is going to prove all of us naysayers wrong. But there has been no hot streak! If we want to continue giving David Ortiz a chance to swing himself out of another season-opening slump, that's fine. Go for it. Bat him ninth, though. Pinch hit for him when the game is on the line and Mike Lowell is sitting on the bench. Treat him just like you would the ninth batter in an NL lineup until he starts hitting like he's designated to do. The brutal failure of Saturday evening's Friday game's eleventh inning is too much to bear. I don't like seeing Ortiz as the goat in a situation where the only thing he has to do is hit a flyball to end the game and he can't even be counted on to make a productive out. Since it seems like Ortiz is sticking around for now, I guess my only hope is that the courts award the 5-hole in the Red Sox lineup to Jay-Z as part of the damages awarded in the pending "40-40" lawsuit (And shouldn't Ortiz have named his club "50-1"? Because even at his best "40-40" and Papi never resided in the same sentence.). Sigh. At least I was able to get in a Randy Kutcher reference here. I would rather have him at DH than Ortiz right now.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox suck either way. The season's pretty much over.
As always, I have to defend Joe Castiglione. Without doubt, Dave O'Brien has been lapping Ortiz's ass crack no matter how badly he looks in the box, but Castiglione hasn't really gone out and said Ortiz will come around. O'Brien is convinced that David is still a major cog in the Sox wheel-o-success, while Castiglione often refers to Papi's greatness in the past tense.
ReplyDeleteAgreed though, Papi has to get dropped in the batting order. I say hit him 8th, or yeah, drop him and go get Kutcher. He'll still be in his forties for another day and a half.