August 1, 2002
Player of the Month!
You'll soon find out, if you visit this blog more than a few times, that I am a huge Minnesota Twins fan.
And as a Twins fan I must admit that, as of about June 30th, I was ready to ditch David Ortiz.
David Ortiz looks like a designated hitter.
He is a huge man, listed at 6-4, 230 (but definitely way bigger).
And, from everything I have read about him, he is one of the most popular Twins players with his teammates.
But, I generally like my designated hitters to hit, regardless of whether or not they look like Mark McGwire (the 1998 version, not the 1988 version) or are good at the ol' post game interview pie-in-the-face.
The problem with Ortiz is, up until June 30th, he just wasn't hitting:
His career line, before this year was .264/.351/.446 (AVG/OBP/SLG), which is certainly not bad, but not exactly great, especially for a DH.
This season, through June 30th, his line was .235/.303/.394, which is just awful for a DH.
Since June 30th I don't know what happened, but David Ortiz has apparently started to hit like he looks:
David Ortiz in July: .380/.462/.772 with 8 homers and 7 doubles.
And since the All-Star break he is even a little better: .394/.474/.803.
Whatever you have been doing in July Dave, keep on doing it.
