"Big Papi" David Ortiz, searching for any excuse, has eyes checked

on 06 9, 2009

David Ortiz has been in an epic struggle at the plate all season, that’s no secret to even the most casual of baseball observers. As a person who has seen nearly every Red Sox game this season I can attest to that. I can count the number of times that he has been able to catch up to a 90 mile per hour fastball in 2009 on one hand…and still have a few fingers left.

Bill Simmons said it best when describing a David Ortiz at-bat in Fenway Park: “It’s filled with 35,000 parents of the same worst kid in Little League who dread every pitch thrown in the kid’s direction. There is constant fear and sadness and helplessness. Nobody knows what to do.”

Red Sox manager Terry Francona has tried everything. He gave Ortiz the entire series in Seattle off, opting to go with a young unproven Jeff Bailey instead. Recently he tried dropping Ortiz to sixth in the lineup hoping to spark the aging icon, with minimal results.

So what does Big Papi do? Well he gets his eyes vision checked of course. The result: his eyes are fine, his bat…not so much.

Seems logical, his eyes have never been a problem before this point in his illustrious career, so maybe all of the sudden they went to shit overnight. Yeah, right. At this point Ortiz seems to be searching for any excuse for the slump that he is in.

In 51 games played Ortiz is hitting .197 with an on-base percentage of .288. Come on David, .288 is hardly a respectable batting average, much less on-base percentage. I don’t even have to mention the fact that he has a mere 2 home runs and 22 runs batted in. That’s embarrassing to say the least for a player of his caliber.

David, instead of searching for lame excuses regarding things such as your vision, maybe it’s time to simply accept the fact that your time as a feared hitter has come to an end. How can someone who’s only job is to hit be so ineffective?

At this point it’s only a matter of time before Ortiz is traded or benched. The Red Sox organization has shown no hesitation to part ways with players who can no longer produce, icon or no icon. Just as they did with Nomar Garciaparra and Pedro Martinez, who were arguably even more popular than Ortiz during their tenures in Boston, the Red Sox front office are no doubt already looking for ways to dump the man known as Big Papi, or at least replace him with another power bat in the next few weeks. Some potential replacements for Ortiz that have been linked to the Red Sox recently include Matt Holliday, Nick Johnson, Jeff Francoeur, Matt LaPorta, and Josh Willingham.

With every swing and a miss, Red Sox Nation is slowly forgetting about Ortiz’s heroics in 2004 and 2007. If Ortiz wants to remain in Boston, or baseball in general, he had better start producing quick. It’s not a stretch to say most fans would rather simply drop the DH and let guys like Brad Penny take their hacks when it’s their turn in the rotation (Penny is a career .158 hitter, not far off of Ortiz’s season average).

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