We joke, we kid, we take Kyle Snyder’s name in vain. We do these things because we love. Because we live and die a little with each passing game. Because watching this team flop and falter through August has been like watching your 93 year-old grandmother hit on your best friends: the height of horror and ugliness, yet you somehow have to keep watching to see where it all goes. Through it all, Ortiz has been the rock. The guy who’s pulled more Luke Skywalkers than anyone on the team. The guy who’s almost single-handedly kept us in contention while the Javy Lopez-Coco Crisp-Rudy Seanez-Jason Johnson-Mike Timlin-Julian Tavarez Lonely Hearts Club Band pushed us closer and closer to the edge of the pier. The guy who seems genuinely outraged and mystified when he can’t secure that winning hit or drive that tying run across the plate, as if instantly channeling every drop of beer-fueled angst across Red Sox Nation. He is the Mighty Thortiz. King David the Destroyer. Commander Kick Ass of the Hell Yeah Brigade. And now… he’s ailing. So we sit and we wait for the updates and we hope for good news. Because it is infinitely more important than anything that transpires on the field.
Not that anything currently going on in the field is worthy of our attention. In a word, everyone’s hurt. Those who still stand are hitting bold new levels of suck. It’s raining fire and molten rock and tears of blood. Kinda like a Journey concert, actually, but everyone’s wearing baseball jerseys. The Papi-Manny juggernaut — the “results generating” portion of your line-up — has been replaced with Loretta-Youk. Dustin Pedroia is 3-for-22. Coco’s hitting .263. Andy Dick continues to carve out a career and score premium trim. Your ex-girlfriend and her husband just moved in next door. Those films from the frat party — you know, the ones with you, the emu, the nipple tassels and a stack of Encyclopedia Brittanicas — have just been posted on YouTube. Your wife just left you for Kent Tekulve. And Papi’s out indefinitely.
It’s times like this that call for Dave Chappelle, John Mayer and that drummer from The Roots singing the theme from Diffr’nt Stokes. So here it is.
