Power Outage

Kurt Cobain once said, "its better to burn out than fade away." It seems as if the prolific slugger that was David Ortiz's power is disappearing faster than a beer in front of David Wells.

Twenty games into the season, and the man they call Papí has not visited the monster seats, perused the bullpen or soared over Pesky's Pole once with a ball yet. Not sure about you but I'm alarmed. He is mired in the second longest power outage in his career. Longest with the Red Sox, despite an 8 game hitting streak that has him batting .344 over that span and has raised his batting average more than 50 percentage points.

Now here comes the alpha question. How long does Tito stick with a number 3 hitter that doesn't remember how to hit home runs? My answer: Mid may. Mark my words if he doesn't have a round-tripper by the Ides of May he will be moved to the 5-6 hole probably flip flopping with a often injured Nancy Drew.

There are many factors that I can see leading to the demise of our heroic DH:

1. Mental- He has still not gotten over the fact that the freak show that was Manny Ramirez has moved to Mannywood.
   
2. Age- After hearing that Vlad "The Impaler" Guerrero is a year older is it wrong to think that Ortiz may be approaching Julio Franco's age? If I were to use a term from the links I'd say that he's on the back nine in terms of his career which means he won't be turning on an AJ Burnett fastball anytime soon. But, that does beg the question, why can't you hit Anthony Reyes' 89 mph blazer? But, I digress.
   
3. Hurt/Stubborn-He claims he's healthy but a healthy Ortiz should have at least as many HR's as Nick Green and Jonathan Van Every, right? His stance has changed ever so slightly since yesteryear when he hit 35+ long balls. Maybe he should re tool his swing or get a lighter bat…your hands and swing aren't what they used to be.
   

The optimist and Sox fan in me says he will be fine, everyone goes through droughts. But the cynic and baseball realist says Big Papí is Papíto or little Papí now and 20 HR's out of him would be a god send. Oh how I miss you David Ortiz, you were a hero among mere mortals.

Stay Tuned

Ryan