This entry was posted on 10/10/2009 8:16 AM and is filed under uncategorized.
David Ortiz has a couple of messages for his Red Sox teammates now that his team stands on the brink of elimination down 0-2 to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
The first is pretty simple: “Hit the damn ball.”
The second is more a team-wide rallying cry after things went about as bad as they possibly could have against an Angels team they’d dominated over their last three playoff meetings. Nobody is saying much about 9 out of the last 10 now. The Boston hitters looked eerily similar to the impotent outfit that carried a 31-inning scoreless streak into Yankee Stadium during the month of August, and went through maddening boom and bust stages during the season.
The Sox finished third in the American League in runs scored (872) behind only the Yankees and the Angels, but they’re hitting a paltry .131 (8-for-61) in the first two games of the postseason. The Sox averaged an American League-best 5.9 runs per game in their home ballpark this season, and are always a more dangerous offensive team within their home confines.
“We’ve been playing better at home all year-round,” said Ortiz to reporters in Anaheim. “Hopefully going back home can help us turn things around and get us back here [to Anaheim for Game 5].
“The pitching is good, man. Good pitching is going to stop offense. They’ve done a good job of holding us down.”
While the Red Sox hex over the Angels appears to be over and down with, the Halos still struggle at Fenway Park and a group of Boston ballplayers now have their backs hiked up against the wall. There have only been four instances when a team has climbed back from an 0-2 deficit during division series play, and the Sox own two of those teams after having pulled it off in both 1999 against the Cleveland Indians and 2003 against the Oakland A’s.
Many of Boston’s key players have been in this position before, and Ortiz is sending out the rallying cry that it ain’t over until Big Papi says its over.
“We are troopers. We just fight back. We don't really care about being like we are [down in the series] or whatever happened in the past,” said Ortiz. “This series isn't over until it's over.
“We just know how to feel things out and fight back, you know. It's like I tell you guys always, doesn't matter what we did in the past against these guys. They have a good team. We really need to focus on that and come out and play.”
The Sox boasted the second-best home record in baseball this season with a 56-25 record at the Fens, and Ortiz and Co. will have to bring a lot of that home cooking into play if Boston’ season is to continue for another day.
