Come To Think Of It: Is This the End of Big Papi and What Should the Red Sox Do?

David Ortiz has long been a major cog in the wheel that is the Boston Red Sox. But this year, that wheel seems to be missing some tread.

Making things worse, the hated New York Yankees have won seven games in a row. Perhaps even more importantly, the Toronto Blue Jays are playing some great baseball and lead the division by 2.5 games.

Look, I still think the Sox are the best team in the American League. But, the talent level in the AL East is such that a team simply cannot afford to look the other way when one of its major pieces is missing in action.

Your move, Theo Epstein and Tito Francona.

Sure, it's a difficult thing to come to grips with the fact that we may be witnessing the decline of David Ortiz. And yes, it is early and an admittedly small sample size.

Yet one cannot ignore how bad Big Papi has been this season.

In 133 ABs, Ortiz is hitting .203 with zero home runs. The Sox are the only team in the AL to not have a homer from the designated hitter position.

There is no question that he has had a great career to this point. A career line of.285/.380/.547/.928 speaks for itself. If his career were to end right now, is he a Hall of Fame player? I don't think so.

But I do know that they miss the offensive production of Big Papi.

We started to see the decline of Ortiz in 2008, when he went from a .332 average in 2007 to a pedestrian .264 last year. That's an almost 70 point swing in only one year.

His homers also decreased, though he played in 40 fewer games. Still, his power has steadily gone down since hitting a career high 54 homers in 2006. His OBP has also steadily declined over the past two years.

Have steroids played a role? I have to ask the question because he fits the profile unfortunately. I'm not accusing him, but we'd be blind not to at least raise the question.

He had a heart scare before and perhaps that froced him off of the juice? I don't know, but then again, who among us thought that Manny was taking steroids?

The again, maybe it's simply an inevitable decline due to advancing age (in a baseball sense). He hasn't exactly been the picture of health, either.

So what do the Sox do now?

There have been rumors floating around that Boston GM Theo Epstein has talked to the Cleveland Indians about Victor Martinez, who is off to a terrific start this season. But so far, it doesn't appear that Indians GM Mark Shapiro has any desire to move Martinez.

There is also the not-so-little thing about Ortiz being guaranteed $12.5 million in 2010.

Ouch.

If he doesn't turn it around, Big Papi will be the most expensive pinch hitter in baseball.

But you don't stick with a player simply because he makes a lot of money. At least a team with deep pockets like the Sox don't need to do that.

Maybe we're being too presumptive in assuming that Ortiz is done. Meanwhile, his performance on Tuesday didn't inspire any added confidence.

What do you think, Red Sox nation? It's a question whose answer may well decide the race, come to think of it.