Ortiz’s Record Tater Trot
With two runners on, one out, and a one-run lead in the eighth Ron Washington entrusted the game to Neal Cotts. The left-handed specialist would square off against David Ortiz, who was 0-for-5 against the southpaw. One umpire review and 32.91 seconds later Ortiz would be 1-for-6 against Cotts and the designated hitter once again raised the question about if there is such a thing as clutch.
According to Tater Trot Ortiz set the record for slowest home run jog. They did mention that Ortiz watched the ball because he thought it was foul, not to show up Texas. Washington contested the home run call because of the height of the ball’s trajectory was difficult to compare to Pesky’s Pole, but the call stood.
Bill Belichick called for goalposts to be heightened by five feet and his proposal was accepted. The Rangers’ skipper certainly would have liked such a measure to be applied to Fenway’s foul pole, but there might not be enough metal to match the majesty of Ortiz’s fly balls.
Rangers leadoff hitter Shin-Soo Choo had been a terror to the Red Sox this series. David Ross neutralized Choo in the third inning with a slick pickoff move. Choo has been fooled on the basepaths before. Last July Hanley Ramirez convinced Choo that he had been tagged out. Choo picked himself up to retreat to his dugout. Once Choo was off the the bag Ramirez received the ball from Andre Ethier and touched the base for the force.
Hey, look! A baseball player whose favorite movie isn’t “Dumb & Dumber.” Jackie Bradley Jr. was negative 8-years old when “Thriller” was released.
| Game 9: April 9, 2014 | ||
| Texas Rangers 4-5 |
2 | L: Alexi Ogando (0-1) BS: Neal Cotts (2) |
| 2B: Shin-Soo Choo (2), Elvis Andrus (2) HR: Mitch Moreland (1) | ||
 Boston Red Sox4-5 |
4 | W: Andrew Miller (1-0) S: Koji Uehara |
| 2B: David Ortiz (2) HR: Ortiz (2) | ||
