David Ortiz Is Not Bleeping Happy With Your Bleeping Questions, You Bleep

Going 0-7 at the plate to start the season isn’t a brilliant beginning for anyone in baseball, much less David Ortiz. But Ortiz plays in a media market that requires every angle covered, every question asked, and every point extrapolated to its end, even after a little more than one hundredth of the season. So someone asked Ortiz about his slow start, and Ortiz gave that person and many more folks in the Red Sox locker room this fill-in-the-four-letter-word version of Mad Libs.

⇥After going hitless Tuesday for a second straight game to start the season, Boston Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz lashed out at reporters when reminded that his struggles last April and May would be a hot topic if he was slow at the start of this season as well.⇥⇥“Good,” he said, turning to face the reporters encircling him. “You guys wait ‘til [expletive] happens, then you can talk [expletive]. Two [expletive] games, and already you [expletives] are going crazy.⇥

⇥⇥“What’s up with that, man? [Expletive]. [Expletive] 160 games left. That’s a [expletive]. One of you [expletives] got to go ahead and hit for me.”⇥

There’s probably no way to get those words exactly right, and no prize for doing so. Suffice to say that Ortiz seems mad.But it’s fair to ask about a sluggish start by Ortiz, especially because if he’s going to start as slowly as he did in 2009 (eight extra base hits, eight walks, no home runs and more strikeouts than hits in April), the Red Sox now have Adrian Beltre, who makes Mike Lowell available for DH work. And Lowell was better (1.2 Wins Above Replacement) in 2009 than Ortiz (0.8 WAR), despite getting into 31 fewer games and playing below-average defense.

So if Ortiz sees a slow start and media queries about it as the writing on the wall, he’s right to be mad: he could very easily lose his starting job soon.

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