Big Poopy

David Ortiz was certainly given a lot of rope by Red Sox skipper Terry Francona. The team was playing fine, and Francona actually was doing the right thing in leaving Ortiz in the #3 spot in the order, because it made sense to try to let the accomplished slugger work through his early funk. But the straw that broke the camel's back came yesterday--in a game yours truly attended, at Angel Stadium--when Ortiz sunk to a new low. In a 12-inning game, Ortiz took the collar, going 0-for-7, and his at-bats were escape hatches for Angel pitchers. Ortiz actually left 12 men on base!

Ortiz is now sporting a feeble .208-.318-.300 line, with just 15 RBI on the season (despite Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia hitting in front of him), and he has not hit a home run in 130 at-bats. That, in combination with his utter failure in yesterday's game, has prompted Francona to bench the DH until Tuesday. Perhaps a few days of watching from the bench will help him, but it's definitely possible that the once-feared slugger is just a shell of his former self. Those in daily leagues will obviously need to reserve him until Tuesday, but honestly, he shouldn't be in fantasy lineups right now the way he's hitting. I couldn't have blamed any of you if you already cut bait with him in mixed leagues, but judging from his owned-percentage in Yahoo leagues (89%), hardly any of you have. If you do own him, you may as well give him one last chance to see what he does after this benching. If he has another terrible week next week, I would start looking at other options in shallow mixed leagues.

Personally, and this is just my opinion, I think Ortiz is pretty much done, at least as a big-time hitter. His wrist injury might have really been bad enough to ensure that he will never be the same. He might not really be 33 (he's from the Dominican Republic, folks, so he could very well be 36-ish), and you never know if he was a performance-enhancing drug user and now he is off the stuff. There's just way too much here for me to think he will ever get it back. There's almost no way you can sell low on Ortiz, either, because nobody will want him right now. But hey, if you can try to pawn him off on the resident Red Sox fan in your league, by all means, give it a shot.