On May 31st in Baltimore David Ortiz took a swing of the bat that would cause many a Red Sox fan a heart palpitation or two as he fouled off a three-two pitch from Orioles reliever Dennis Sarfate. After the pitch, Ortiz grimaced in pain and immediately left the game with an apparent wrist injury. Word would come a few days later that David Ortiz would spend the next month plus sidelined with his left wrist immobilized in a hard cast.
After a slow start to the season, Ortiz’ month of May had settled into the type production Red Sox fans have grown used to over the years as he posted a .318 average with eight home runs, twenty-two runs batted in, and a 1.026 OPS.
Ho-hum, just another month from David Ortiz.
All worries about his slow start had been put aside and the Red Sox were ready to ride Ortiz and a heating up Manny Ramirez in the middle of the line-up into the summer and beyond.
After the news of Ortiz’ injury however, reactions were mixed but on the whole there was a distinct undercurrent of belief that the Red Sox would overcome the loss of their slugger. Fire Brand commenter Lindsay summed it up nicely;
I don’t know, I mean yeah it sucks obviously, but I don’t see this being a HUGE blow to the offense, I think they have the depth to recover it. this way they can keep doing the Coco-Ellsbury switcheroo, bring up Moss, and DH Manny on occasion, and use Casey. Casey’s had a hot bat, and Manny’s come alive again, so I donǃÙt see this hitting them as hard as you do.
Were Red Sox fans being cocky or overly self assured? Or were they just being matter of fact, to the point, and rational to a fault?
With the news that David Ortiz’ hard cast was taken off today likely signifying that he isn’t feeling pain in his wrist anymore and the team halfway through the first month without him, I thought it a good time to look at how much, or little, the Red Sox have missed Big Papi in hopes to understand how long they could afford to stay without him in the lineup.
Overall, the team hasn’t missed a beat going 10-4 without Papi holding court in the three spot. And for all of those who thought that the offense was deep enough to overcome the potential hole in the line-up, I say, “Bravo!”
The Red Sox offense this June has been more productive than any other month so far this season. Overall the team is hitting .283 with an .859 team OPS and as many home runs (23) in the first half of this month as they did (24) in all of April/May. Averaging over five runs a game without Ortiz, it does appear that the rest of the team has picked up the slack in his absence.
Where has the production come from? Interestingly enough the replacement for Ortiz’ production has been fueled by both his spot in the batting order (#3) and his position (DH). Except in this case, it’s by two different players.
With Manny Ramirez moving to DH in Ortiz’ absence and the “dreadlocked one” being “dead-locked on”, the vacated spot at the designated hitter role has been filled to the tune of a .370 batting average and 1.221 OPS, with five home runs and fifteen RBIs in fourteen games.
Not to be outdone, J.D. Drew’s production in the three hole of the line-up is downright Papi-like. Either there’s magic in that #3 hole or hitting behind a hot Manny is the place to be as Drew June numbers are outright nasty (.447/.557/1.106 for an OPS of 1.664, seven home runs — and another last night as I wrote this making it eight, six doubles, and seventeen RBIs). Holy Cow!!!
Up and down the lineup from Ellsbury at the top to Youkilis and Lowell in the middle, there is some serious June production picking up the slack for Papi.
Now, does this all mean that we can bide our collective time while Ortiz gets healthy without worry of missing his prestigious production? To some degree, we have a little luxury of leeway to that effect. There is absolutely no reason to rush Papi back into the batter’s box until his wrist is ready.
But does this continued offensive production in his absence make us think that this team is built for a championship without a healthy David Ortiz in the mix in the second half of the season? I for one am not yet ready to take that leap. Are you? Tell me why.