Dear Mr. Ortiz:
Splendid work last night. It was nice to see you bust out of Wednesday’s 0-for-5 coma which, let’s face it, helped sink our ship but fast against the Yankees.
It was also cool to see you effectively neutralize Tampa Bay’s “Papi Shift,” belting a couple seeing-eye hits through the holes and no doubt prompting Joe Maddon to hit the bottle a few times mid-game.
But that tagging up on Trot Nixon’s fly out in the third inning, coupled with a head-first slide into third?
Dude. No more of that sh-t.
Seriously.
We just got out of a brief interleague set which I watched from behind my couch, certain that you’d twist an ankle or tear a mighty ass cheek or do some other irreparable damage as you covered first base. Now we’re back in the AL, at Friendly Fenway no less, and you pull something like this? I won’t deny it was ballsy; certainly unexpected and for a hulk of a guy, you can motor. But, man, haven’t we seen enough head-first-sliding drama over the past couple years to swear us off the stuff for the rest of our lives? I know the hits have been coming fairly easy these days throughout the line-up, but I don’t wanna imagine a summer without Papi. Think of me. Think of the children. Just… don’t do it.
Beyond that horror, however, it was a nicely played game, full of spectacular pitching, key hits, and some nice D by Mark Loretta, who has clearly adopted an “all human flesh” diet of late. Tampa Bay plays us tough, but this is precisely the type of team we need to be swabbing the deck with if we wanna keep the lights on in October.
Tonight, it’s the return of Wells. And it ain’t comin’ easy, with Kazmir on the hill for the Rays. Let’s roll.
