Much of this season has been bordering on nightmarish for Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz. After slumping to his worst season in Boston during a 2008 season that saw him play only 109 games and hit only .186 in the postseason, 2009 was supposed to be a bounce-back season for the five-time All-Star.
But through April and May, it was anything but for Ortiz. He went homerless until May 20, and after hitting .230 in April, hit a real low point in May, hitting only .143 (13 for 91), which saw his average drop to .185 heading into June.
However, Ortiz has picked a fine time to start finding his stroke, and it couldn’t happen soon enough for both he and the Red Sox.
Last night, Ortiz came up huge for the Red Sox in an 8-2 win over Florida, hitting a solo homer and a two-run single in a six-run fourth that turned a one-run deficit into a seven-run mountain that the Marlins couldn’t climb.
Last night was the latest sign that the Ortiz is well on his way to reclaiming his status as one of the game’s most feared hitters. His solo shot against the Marlins was Ortiz’s fourth homer in the last nine games, and in that span, he’s hitting 9 for 23 (.391) with the four homers, and seven RBI. The recent surge has raised his batting average from .188 to .210, and he now has five homers and 28 RBI for the season, and after having only seven multi-hit games in the first two months of the season, he has three in these last nine games.
Did last week’s visit to the eye doctor do the trick? Vision wasn’t the problem, but he did get eye drops to help with dry eyes. That could be allowing him to see the ball a lot better than he was before, which can make a big difference as a hitter.
But even if there was a physical issue, the mental side carries every bit as much weight as the physical, and it‘s no stretch to say that a lack of confidence played at least a small part in his struggles. When you’re in the midst of a slump, the hardest thing to do is get out of it, but all it can is a few big hits to turn the confidence around, and that looks to be the case with Ortiz.
It also doesn’t hurt that he’s been a lot more patient at the plate. Before the Texas game on June 6, when his surge started, Ortiz had 52 strikeouts and only 24 walks. In the last nine games, he’s walked six times and struck out only five, with only two of those whiffs coming in the last seven games.
Boston’s lineup hasn’t exactly faltered due to Ortiz’s struggles, with contributions coming from Jason Bay on down to journeyman Nick Green, but Ortiz’s success can only mean good things for the lineup, especially when occasional struggles from their talented rotation have made offensive production and bullpen excellence all the more important.
If he can keep up the good hitting through the remainder of the series against the Marlins and this weekend’s series against the Braves, he may be in line to see more time at first when the Red Sox are DH-less at Washington and Atlanta than he might have before.
More than that, though him hitting well and staying in the fifth spot means pitchers can’t pitch around cleanup hitter Jason Bay to get to him or pitch around him to get to Mike Lowell, Terry Francona could see fit to insert him back into the third spot in the order before long. If he keeps it up after moving back to the three hole, and pitchers have to worry about pitching to Kevin Youkilis, Jason Bay, and Mike Lowell afterwards, and Dustin Pedroia and either Jacoby Ellsbury or J.D. Drew before him, which creates all sorts of recipes for disaster on any given night.
It remains to be seen whether this is just a brief surge or if the Ortiz of old is really back, but if it’s the latter, it bodes very well for Boston’s hopes to distance themselves from their rivals in the AL East over the next few months.
