Boston Red Sox: Did David Ortiz Peak Too Early in 2011?

It is quite amazing to think that David Ortiz still leads the Boston Red Sox with 20 home runs. After all, a whopping 17 of those dingers came between April 1 and June 12, at which point the designated hitter’s 2011 season batting average hit its peak at .325.

Since then, leadoff man Jacoby Ellsbury has left the yard 11 times, including Wednesday night’s walk-off winner. That has elevated him to a tie with Adrian Gonzalez for second on Boston’s home run leaderboard, with a career-high 19 on the year.

Dustin Pedroia has hit 10 homers since mid-June after belting only five beforehand.

During the span in question, Kevin Youkilis had left the yard seven times, Gonzalez five.

Since July 7 alone, Jarrod Saltalamacchia has hit five homers from the lower-third echelon of the Red Sox batting order.

All the while, Ortiz has sprinkled a sparse three longballs, while his aforementioned .325 batting average has descended to .289.

Translation: While nearly all of his prominent offensive colleagues have turned it up since the Summer Solstice, Ortiz has tapered off.

At the conclusion of a 14-1 throttling of the Toronto Blue Jays on June 12, Ortiz coupled his .325 average and 17 home runs with a .395 on-base percentage, .605 slugging percentage and 1.019 OPS. Entering Wednesday night’s game against Cleveland, those three stats, respectively, were down to .376, .536 and .912, his lowest OPS since May 22.

In addition, Ortiz had struck out 28 times in his first 63 games and 233 at-bats this season. Since then, he has whiffed 24 times out of 129 at-bats in 39 games.

Granted, not all of Big Papi’s trends are toe-curling. He is still getting base hits, drawing walks and knocking in runs at about the same rate as he has for the better part of this season.

On the other hand, at a time when the Red Sox' schedule is just getting tougher, Ortiz is easily in his worst hitting slump outside of his period of self-imposed distractions during interleague play. Dating back to his last home run, a grand slam versus Kansas City last Wednesday, he is hitting only 3-for-30.

And at any rate, those who might have been holding out hope for a rerun of Senor October from circa 2004-2007 this fall, are advised to slow down.

If his regular seasons are any decent barometer for predicting his postseasons, then Ortiz is looking less likely to be on the same heroic platform as the likes of Gonzalez and Youkilis—his successor in the cleanup slot—ought to be.

Ortiz has not finished a regular season with a batting average in the .300's since Boston’s last championship campaign in 2007 when he had a .332 success rate by season’s end. For him, it was a career year under that heading and the third time he finished with a supra-.300 average in a span of four seasons, including the curse-cracking year of 2004.

His best final average since then was a .270 finish last season. Rather ironic considering that was the year in which he notoriously stumbled out of the gate, to put it kindly, and did not so much as step on the Mendoza Line until May 12.

But not for a single day since 2007 had Ortiz broken the .300 plateau until he did on May 24 of this year. (Technically, he was up to .333 on April 3, but opening weekend is hardly a time for turning heads.)

For roughly two months thereafter, Ortiz continued to hover around or above the heralded .300 line. However, his average has now remained below that border for a full week. Entering Wednesday’s bout with the Indians, it has dropped to .288, the lowest it has been since May 18.

There is no need to assume he cannot rekindle like he has before. But at age 35, Ortiz joins Marco Scutaro and Jason Varitek as the only regular Boston batters older than 29. One has to wonder if he can noticeably re-surge in the latter phases of the season.

With Carl Crawford moving farther away from his injury-induced hurdle, there is a fair chance he and Ortiz could swap positions in the batting order by season’s end. One might even declare that a best-case scenario from a pure-Papi standpoint.

But all things considered, that’s really not a terrible proposition. Ortiz can still be an appreciably effective contributor in his quest for a third World Series ring.

He and his longtime devotees will just need to accept his passing the leader’s torch to Gonzalez, Youkilis and the like.

And at this rate, maybe also passing down the clutch hitter’s crown to Ellsbury.