Boston Red Sox manager Terry Francona finally made the decision to give David Ortiz some mental health days before yesterday’s loss to the Seattle Mariners. Normally you would say the Red Sox missed his bat but that just hasn’t been the case this season.
Francona wouldn’t commit to Big Papi in the lineup at all this weekend but the Red Sox players are still standing behind him.
“I think your personality has a lot to do with it,” Mike Lowell said. “I think the fact that he cares so much makes it almost worse because you can see that he’s trying, but he’s not in synch. If you don’t feel in synch, it seems like every good pitch you get you foul it off. Hitting with two strikes every at-bat. Then after you foul off a pitch they make their pitch.
“I think we all still have a lot of confidence in David. I don’t buy the bat speed’s slow, I don’t believe in four months you lose bat speed. I don’t buy the Manny [Ramírez] deal. I just think he’s maybe not seeing the ball well; that triggers other things.”
As for the game itself, there’s not much to say other than Jon Lester didn’t stay focused. He had a sure-fire double play ball hit to him and he hesitated to make the throw to second and barely got the runner at first. In the end, it left him frazzled and he left a few pitches up in the zone, the last one was hit into the right field seats by Ichiro Suzuki.
The Ichiro home run ended the night for Lester and the Mariners bullpen shut them down as former Red Sox reliever David Aardsma closed the door on them in the 9th even though the final out off the bat of Jason Bay came about two feet short of giving the Red Sox the lead.
But it wasn’t to be and the struggles for the Red Sox continued on the left coast. Thankfully all that ends after tomorrow’s game.
Ichiro: Deep impact [Boston Globe]
Mariners’s hang ‘L’ on Lester [Boston Herald]
Ichiro homers twice off Lester as Sox again blow 4-0 lead [Providence Journal]
Ortiz is stranded on the bench [Boston Globe]
Same old story for Red Sox offense [Boston Herald]
Struggling Ortiz benched for Friday, and maybe longer [Providence Journal]
Lugo stands to help [Boston Globe]
David Ortiz gets time off [Boston Herald]
Kottaras taking surprisingly well to Wakefield’s knuckler [Providence Journal]
Lester lets loose following another loss [Boston Globe]
J.D. Drew tired of hitting into hard outs [Boston Herald]
Ellsbury comes this close to a heckuva homecoming [Projo Sox Blog]
Hey, Big Papi, we’ve been there [Boston Globe]
Jim Rice’s role rehearsal [Boston Herald]
Visiting hours [Boston Globe]
Baldelli does a fine impression of Ortiz [Wicked Good Sports]
Five Things We Learned: A Pair of Sox Looking for Answers [Alex Speier – WEEI.com]
For more slices of Boston Red Sox goodness, head over to the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, and Providence Journal websites.
And if the enemy papers are more your thing, you can check out the Seattle Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Tacoma News Tribune websites.
