I believe David Ortiz will have a monster year because the media pressure will be on Gonzalez and Crawford. The Boston media hounds are going to want to know every detail about the newest additions to the team. That leaves David to concentrate on his individual tasks. He is a proud man and he loves playing baseball and he’s going to do well. Go Papi,go.

Tito confirms what I have been saying all winter. Ortiz should sit down against lefties,but Tito won’t do it. What is the matter with this guy? (Tito)How can you offer the other team a nearly automatic out when you could send up a good RH bat? The stats are staring him right in the face! To say he won’t hit well against righties if he doesn’t face lefties is ridiculous.Troy Glaus is out there,a cheap platoon partner for Papi,who could fill in at 1st and 3rd. But, why should Theo aquire him if Tito won’t use him? It’s a shame to see your team’s chances sabotaged by the manager.

Robert’s comment is typical of fans who look at players like robots and think a manager’s decisions can be made purely by numbers. Two facts: Ortiz is a human being. And Francona is really good at managing human beings.

Here’s what I mean: You don’t just play Ortiz against righthanded pitchers and automatically get .300/.400/.550 for those at-bats. Instead, you would get an older player who gets rusty, who has even less likelihood of success against all pitchers. Part of the success of an everyday player is the confidence that comes from the rhythm of playing every day. You would also lose a little competitive edge by enabling opposing managers to know that you will not allow Ortiz to bat against lefties. Francona understands this balance and his comments reflect that.

Platoons work for some players but rarely for stars who have always been everyday players. Judge Ortiz on the entire body of work — in 2010, .270/.370/.529 with 32 HR and 102 RBI. I’ll take that in a second, and do so knowing that Tito will sit him against the toughest lefties and pinch-hit for him once in a while when the matchups clearly dictate that.

Francona knows how to manage people and get the most out of them. His patience with Ortiz last April and May, when most fans thought he was being blindly loyal to the detriment of the team, turned out to be dead-on correct.

Everyone goes through a slump. I say let Ortiz play, and he’ll figure it out and be back to being awesome!

Mark,Ortiz plays 70 percent of the time. That should be enough AB’s to keep him from getting rusty.This is why Tito’s remark made no sense.The stats show that he hit .297 against righties and in the low 2′s against lefties.Looking at the big picture,his career with the Red Sox has been excellent,but his lefty stats don’t lie.A good team player would volunteer to sit down. He is getting older and the problem hurts the team and costs them victories.Ortiz knows this and doesn’t seem to care. It’s one thing to manage people and its another thing to pamper aging super stars.Ortiz does not make Tito’s job any easier tossing tantrums if asked to sit down.IMO,platoons should be used alot more in baseball.

A slump? against left handed pitching this guy is one of the worst hitter’s in baseball period, i guess tito is willing to let him and Drew another bum make automatic outs batting against left handed pitching. 222 what a power house 2 homers this guy is a shell of himself

So the end is near and so i bid….

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