Ortiz Fights Through Toughest Season Yet

Posted by Adam Hart October 8, 2009 at 8:20 am

The 2009 regular season was one which Boston Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz spent trying to emerge from the shadows. The shadow of an injury-plagued 2008 campaign, the shadow of performance enhancing drug accusations, the shadow of his father’s reported illness, the shadow of his former, larger-than-life self.

Ortiz called this his most frustrating season, never once reaching that sustained high the man known as Big Papi experienced in years prior.

“When I was in Minnesota, I wasn’t an everyday player. So, struggle or not struggle, it was pretty much the same — you play one game, you didn’t play for the week, you go back and play,” Ortiz said, noting that being in the lineup day-in and day-out he couldn’t help but see the tough time he was having at the plate. “When you play every day and you don’t see good results, you’re definitely struggling.”

There were questions about Ortiz’s health at the start of the 2009 season, as he was recovering from injuries to his knee and wrist. Injuries can lead to a lack of confidence in those body parts — especially troublesome for a hitter, whose trust in the quickness of his hands is essential.

Aside from his own injuries and lack of confidence was a personal matter that may have interfered with his play.

“I was having some personal problems, like everyone — things you got to deal with in life,” Ortiz said, referencing the reported illness his fathered suffered in the offseason, which carried into the regular season. “That’s something as a human being you always have. There’s not one human being that don’t have to deal with any [stuff].”

In dealing with such a personal situation, it is often discovered what type of support system one has. The same is true for a ballplayer struggling to attain a level of greatness formerly displayed on the playing field.

“I find out about three things: fans, to me here are the best, they were behind me the whole time — it’s something that I would never forget about; friends, you get to know who’s who when the tough time shows up, and it’s hard to say but I’m the guy that I don’t really have friends — my friends is my family and that’s about it; on the other hand, I figure that there’s people that when you struggle they get happier, because they got something to talk about.”

The latter of those three is clearly a knock on the media, which was not always supportive of Ortiz when he reached his lowest of lows during a season which included his outing as a name on the list of 104 Major League Baseball who allegedly tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. The ensuing headlines, cruel chants by opposing fans, press conference in New York — all things Ortiz could only silence by doing what he has done best since arriving in Boston in 2003: hit the baseball.

Through 51 games at the close of May, Ortiz’s season batting average was at .185, an unacceptable level for a designated hitter. From there, something clicked. It was the classic chicken or the egg situation. Were Ortiz’s struggles ended by his performance on the field, enabling him to block out the distractions; or was it his ability to block out the distractions that caused him to be able to perform at a higher level? Either way, Boston’s long-time slugger started to take that batting average northward, boosting it 50 points by the close of Game 162 on Sunday.

“I know how to bounce back, I know how to figure things out and the hard work paid out,” Ortiz said.

“It’s like I told everyone — I know how to use this,” Ortiz said, lifting up his bat. “It still works. And when I start using it the right way, I was going to make it happen. It’s all about being healthy, feeling good and at one point my confidence started clicking.”

He was right; he still did know how to swing the bat effectively. And the type of turnaround he executed put his resilience as a player and a teammate on display. Unlike his cleanup hitter for so many years, Dodgers left fielder Manny Ramirez who missed 50 games this season due to violation Major League Baseball’s PED policy, Ortiz faced the media through his slump and addressed the fans after allegations of performance enhancing drug use broke out.

“I’m the guy that, when I have confidence, I feel like I’m the best on the field,” Ortiz said. “I know how to deal with bad times and good times. I got my teammates coming to me at the end of the season and telling me, ‘Hey, you know what, the best thing about the whole year that you had was that you were the same guy — bad times, good times’.”

As the ALDS neared, Ortiz posted a .280 average over the months of September and October, blasting six home runs while driving in 21 — falling one run-batted-in short of another 100 RBI season. Maybe, just maybe, Ortiz will prove he is out of the shadows which plagued much of his season by putting forth the type of postseason production that lives up to the name Big Papi.