Here's another weekly dose of Peter Gammons from ESPN radio. The highlights: Gammons doesn't expect anything major done at the trading deadline for the Sox, and he says that Manny Ramirez is a complimentary player. Interesting.





Let’s focus on David Ortiz. Everybody is really focusing on him and that Ortiz was great in Pawtucket and great in Portland and everything is going to be hunky-dory, but the injury was in his wrist and that’s a pretty important part of the whole hitting process.

PG: Well I talked to a couple of pitchers and I talked to Justin Masterson about it and they said that he let it fly down in Pawtucket and it didn’t hurt, and that was important. David said to me last week that he thinks he’s going to be 90-95 percent, which is a lot better than anything else they could put in there. And David is so important.

When he’s in the lineup I think he makes Manny a lot braver. Manny is never going to go carrying a team by himself; I think he’s a complimentary player. He has great numbers, but he’s not going to carry a team all by himself.

Just the fact that they really needed [Manny] yesterday and he didn’t play [in Seattle] tells you something. Ortiz makes a lot of people better and he makes the whole lineup better.
 
Does he hit 20 home runs the rest of the way?

Probably not, but I think he makes them a much different team. The number of pitches he gets. The one thing I find really frustrating is that you look at some of the lineup, the bottom third of the order, and this year they haven’t been as good as they’ve been in the past.

And then you start to see Lowrie get in there and see some pitches. Okay he did strike out against Felix Hernandez throwing 98-mph, but he also had a 12-pitch at bat as opposed to Varitek and Crisp with three pitch at bats. Ortiz moves the lineup down a little deeper and you also have Lowrie who is going to play the rest of the way this season.

You’ve expanded that lineup and get a little more of an on base percentage the rest of the season, and I think that’s important. I really do; especially against right-handed pitching. I mean, Jason has really struggled this season and I think since May 20 he has like a .230 slug, which is just unbelievable.

[Jacoby Ellsbury] hasn’t been the same since he hurt the wrist in the outfield and he hasn’t been able to put any loft on the balls thrown inside and hit the ball to right field. Hopefully for their sake he gets back because he’s such an important part of their team. But I think getting Ortiz back definitely at least gets them some thunder back and against right-handed pitching he can take that outside fastball and hit it off the wall or hit it into the net. That will make a difference.

A guy like Ellsbury really needs those wrists for his swing and generating power.
PG: I agree. I remember back when I was working at the Boston Globe that Carl Yastrzemski hurt his wrist – and this was coming off hitting 40 home runs in three of the last four years and in those days that was really unusual – and he hurt his wrist at the end of July in 1971 and he didn’t hit another home run until August of 1972. Now, we’re talking about a Hall of Fame player that had hit 40 home runs in three out of four seasons and he didn’t hit a home run for an entire year because of the injured wrist.

The other major issue is Manny Ramirez and I’m inclined to believe that he’s actually hurting a bit here, but there are also reports that he’s unhappy with the team and unhappy in Boston. How would you handle this?
PG: I think the Sox have handled it very well and they were very protective of him when they issued the fine and he had the incident with Jack McCormick.

Now I agree with Scott Boras here, he has to perform. I mean, he isn’t getting $20 million from anybody else. His OPS is down 120 points in the last two seasons from where it had been the previous eight seasons of his career.
There’s no indication he’s the same player. He hasn’t played more than 135 games in, what, five years. So, if he wants to get $20 million he needs to perform and not just talk about Manny Being Manny. He needs to do something.

There comes a point where the Red Sox could say I think they’re going to pick up the option for next year, but there’s some responsibility on his part for that option as well.
 He has no clue what his market value is. I mean he’s the worst left fielder statistically in every other way in the game, and there’s no question. I mean, he’s even worse than Adam Dunn. So what is his value?

I mean, will he get three years and $14 million maybe, for an .890 OPS guy maybe.

The whole “playing for a contract thing” really seems to be bothering him, so maybe you should pick up that option.
PG: But just picking up one year isn’t enough. He wants an extension. This is one of the only businesses in the world where you can say I want more money, but you don’t actually have to perform to get that money.

It’s an irrational thing that he hasn’t yet dealt with, and I talked a bunch of players last weekend and they actually told me they think he’ll finally just get really mad and hit like crazy for the last two months of the season.

They really need that, and I think having Ortiz back really helps him there because I think David makes everyone braver. But somehow I think he needs to understand and I think that’s what Boras is trying to explain to him: “If you want that money then you have to go out and perform to get it.” It’s not that you’re going to get paid for what you did from 1998 to 2006.

What do you think the Sox will do during the trade deadline?
PG: I don’t think they’ll do anything significant. There is a possibility that they’ll do the backup shortstop Cora for Uribe deal, but John McDonald will not be available to them to back up Lowrie for the rest of the season. They were in the relief pitcher market, but from what I gather if a left-handed pitcher falls in their lap then they’ll take it…but they’re not going to give up a lot for it.

Guardado?
PG: Ah…I was told yesterday by Jon Daniels that they don’t want to move him unless they get a really elite prospect for him. Masterson threw the ball so well in Seattle and his makeup is so great, that I think they are inclined to hope that they can throw Masterson into the seventh and eighth innings. And they also hope that they can get Okajima back. The last five appearances he’s thrown some pretty good off-speed pitches, which that’s something he has to have and they keep working on it. I would be surprised if they did anything significant.