Another disastrous April is turning into an equally distressing May for David Ortiz, following Tuesday’s grisly 0-for-4, two-strikeout, two-double play, seven-LOB performance.
Talk of sitting — or even releasing — Big Papi grows louder with each bad at-bat. People have seen this show before, and no one wants to wait until June 5 to see if Ortiz will turn it around again.
And that has Dustin Pedroia angry.
No one feels more acutely the sting of being left for dead, after his own miserable start in 2007. And as he made clear after Tuesday’s game, as only Pedroia can, he doesn’t want to hear it about Ortiz.
“He’s had 60 at-bats,” Pedroia said. “A couple of years ago I had 60 at-bats and I was hitting .170 and everyone was ready to kill me, too. What happened? A laser show.
“So, relax. I’m tired of looking at the NESN poll, why is David struggling? He came out of it last year and he’s going to come out of it this year. I’m going to go vote: Papi’s fine, thanks for playing.”
The manager agrees. Ortiz was back in the lineup last night against Joel Pineiro, not least because Ortiz is 9-for-23 in his career against him.
“David needs to play tonight,” Terry Francona said before the game. “We got to give David chances where we think he can succeed to put some good swings on the ball.”
