With Ortiz out, how about Bonds?
Posted: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 8:58 PM
You don’t lose a player like David Ortiz and not feel it. And if Boston loses Big Papi for the season – and don’t count out that possibility – it’s going to be the biggest challenge this team has faced since it claimed its place as one of baseball’s elite teams.
The word out of Boston is that he’ll be out about four weeks with a partially torn sheath on one of the tendons on the top of his left hand. The sheath holds the tendon in place, and the injury is said to be similar to the one Curt Schilling had on his ankle back in 2004 – you know, the bloody-sock injury. With the sheath torn, the tendon slides back and forth over bone. This is painful – too painful for Ortiz to continue playing. If it’s still too painful when he tries to come back, he’ll go under the knife and it’s bye-bye Papi until next season.
I don’t know if it will be an insurmountable problem. According to the Boston Herald, Ortiz has missed 43 games in five years and the Red Sox are 32-11 in those games – a nifty .744 winning percentage.
But those 43 games weren’t consecutive and Ortiz has never been on the disabled list. It’s one thing for everyone to lift their games for a short period to make up for a star’s absence. Doing it every day for months on end is when it becomes a problem.
Ortiz’s doctors are hoping that they can relieve the soreness by immobilizing the wrist and hand for two weeks in a cast. The Red Sox hope they’re right.
Boston is a strong team, maybe the strongest in baseball. And the Red Sox organization is one of the best. This year, they’ve survived injuries to Mike Lowell, Schilling – he’s been out all year – Clay Buchholz, Sean Casey, Josh Beckett, and Daisuke Matsuzaka. Still, they’re right up there at the top of the division with the surprising Rays.
But one of the reasons for the team’s success over the past five years is Ortiz. Since he arrived in 2003 and teamed with Manny Ramirez in the heart of the batting order, Boston has won more games than any team not named the Yankees. They’ve also won two world championships.
They have great hopes of winning another this year, but to do that, they have to fill the hole in the middle of the line-up, and extra helpings of Coco Crisp aren’t the answers.
Eric Wilbur of The Boston Globe points out in his blog that when Manny Ramirez missed 23 games last year, the Red Sox won the division anyway. But they also lost half of their six-game lead over the Yankees during that time.
This year, Toronto is playing great baseball after a lousy start, the Yankees are always capable of big things, the Orioles are greatly improved, and those pesky Rays are hanging around the top of the division.
Wilbur has a suggestion for a replacement if the injury doesn’t get better – Barry Bonds. He was in Boston – a city he once called racist – last summer during interleague play, and at the time, it was reported that he really liked the city.
According to The Globe, “"He genuinely enjoyed himself here," said one teammate. "He walked around the city a lot and people were really nice to him. They weren't yelling at him, or yelling stuff at him or anything like that. People were very respectful of him. I think for a lot of us, this was kind of a test because we heard Boston would be rough on him. In the ballpark, sure there were the asterisks that people were holding up, and the "Steroids!" chants and all the things he's seen and heard before. So that part wasn't any different. The part that was different is the reception he got on the streets. And even the reception he got when he hit the home run."
BALCO Barry Bonds in Boston?
He’s a big bat. He hits lefty. He draws a ton of walks. Just like Big Papi.
It’s crazy enough to make sense.
