Kuzul

It’s often difficult to forecast X-factors for playoff series, largely because the unsung hero is so prevalent on the grandest of stages. 

However, it’s often reasonable to take a look at the information from the regular season and make predictions for just that based on what we know about each team still in contention. 

We’re down to four teams in the 2013 MLB playoffs, and the St. Louis Cardinals took steps toward more October glory with a win over the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series Friday night. 

The Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox will do battle on Saturday, and before that happens, now is a great time to look at the current postseason landscape with respect to how things might end. 

It’s also a good time to look at X-factors for the two remaining league series, which we will do below. 

*2013 MLB playoff bracket can be found at MLB.com. Watch postseason baseball live on TBS.com or your mobile device.

Remaining 2013 MLB Postseason Schedule, Listings

Big Papi might be pushing 40, but his postseason experience and thunder-producing swing are key for the Red Sox to return to World Series glory.

In fact, you might say Ortiz is the biggest key for Boston in a season in which things have been clicking on all cylinders for the majority of the year. 

As noted by this MLB tweet, Ortiz can still hit with the best of them:

Sports Illustrated‘s Twitter account wasn’t shy in proclaiming that Papi is hitting like he is in his prime:

With a lineup that can go boom at virtually any moment, Ortiz is still the man who will be counted on to drive in runs and provide clutch hits for the AL contenders. Facing a Detroit Tigers pitching staff, he’ll have no luxury of seeing meat in the ALCS. 

Luckily, he’s been in big spots before. Other Red Sox have too, but Papi is still around for a reason. We’ll see what he has left in the tank against Detroit. 

Carlos Beltran, St. Louis Cardinals

It’s getting redundant, but man Carlos Beltran loves the postseason.

The 36-year-old do-it-all outfielder now has 34 RBI in 40 career postseason games, and was the hero again on Friday night as his single in the bottom of the 13th gave St. Louis a 3-2 victory over Los Angeles in Game 1 of the NLCS. 

It’s hard to believe he’d never had a walk-off before in the postseason, but he does now:

As noted by Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports, clutch is the word that most comes to mind when talking about Beltran:

Both teams in the NLCS are loaded with talent. We could have just as easily listed Matt Carpenter, Adam Wainwright, Yadier Molina or one of the rookie pitchers for St. Louis, and Los Angeles’ X-factors include Yasiel Puig, Clayton Kershaw and Andre Ethier.

But Beltran reminded us again in Game 1 why the Cardinals are so dangerous. He accounted for their entire offense, and picked the team up on a night where a loss wouldn’t have been a surprise.

It doesn’t get any more X-factor than that.

Follow B/R’s Ethan Grant on Twitter. 

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Back in 1996, on a rainy day in Appleton, Wisconsin, the Seattle Mariners bought major league baseball to a small town in a way that nobody ever expected.

In an effort to churn up interest in their minor league affiliates, the Seattle Mariners went on a barnstorming tour, bringing the major leagues to a handful of minor league parks around the country for some exhibition baseball.

That included a stop at Fox Cities Field to take on their Single-A affiliate, the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers.

With a packed house that stayed, despite the rain, growing restless, Seattle manager Lou Piniella refused to send his team on the field even if the rain subsided, pointing to the fact that he wasn’t about to risk one of his stars getting injured on a wet field in a meaningless game while the team was in a pennant race.

But, should the rain come to an end, the teams needed to do something for the masses.

So Mariners catcher Dan Wilson hatched an ingenious plan: Home Run Derby.

Wilson, Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez, who started his career in Appleton back in 1994, would take on any three players that the Timber Rattlers dared send to the plate. Little did they know, the home team had a ringer.

After watching Junior struggle to hit the ball out of the yard, generating some good-natured ribbing from the fans in attendance, up to the plate stepped a relatively unknown 20-year-old first baseman by the name of David Ortiz.

And he put on a show.

Ortiz hit moonshot after moonshot, leaving Griffey speechless and Rodriguez conceding the contest to his future contemporary, exclaiming “I ain’t got a chance” as Ortiz crushed another pitch.

Who would have imagined that, nearly 20 years later, all three players would have Hall of Fame-caliber numbers—but that only the guy who couldn’t go deep would have a clear path into Cooperstown’s hallowed halls?

Irony at its finest.

*H/T to CBS Sports’ Matt Snyder for the find.

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Boston Red Sox star David Ortiz was ejected from Saturday night’s road game against the Baltimore Orioles after smashing the bullpen phone in the visiting dugout.

Ortiz walked twice but was hitless in his two other plate appearances, including the final one where he struck out swinging in the top of the seventh inning. The veteran argued balls and strikes throughout, and once he had the dugout tantrum, home plate umpire Tim Timmons tossed him.

After the game, Ortiz offered some insight into what made him so angry (via Providence Journal reporter Brian MacPherson):

Ortiz: “MLB should do something about that because that was horrible. … The worst call of the year.”

— Brian MacPherson (@brianmacp) July 28, 2013

Ortiz said what really set him off was when Timmons wouldn’t admit he missed it. Timmons had told Dempster he missed the 0-2 pitch.

— Brian MacPherson (@brianmacp) July 28, 2013

Getting kicked out of the game only made Ortiz even more upset, as he walked to the top of the dugout shouting at Timmons for the bad calls he apparently made.

An unfortunate byproduct of the situation was that Ortiz nearly hit his teammate, Dustin Pedroia, with the bat shards that flew as a result of his anger, per Jenny Dell of NESN:

Wild game. David Ortiz tossed after destroying bullpen phone in dugout with bat. Dustin Pedroia nearly hit by bat shards. #RedSox

— Jenny Dell (@JennyDellNESN) July 28, 2013

It would be one thing for Ortiz to get this upset in the friendly confines of Fenway Park, but the fact that this took place in another team’s stadium is sure to draw the ire of those interested in the Orioles.

Here’s the remnants of the dugout phone (courtesy of ESPN’s Gordon Edes):

Phone destroyed by David Ortiz, wrapped in its plastic burial shroud. It was phone to pressbox, not pen pic.twitter.com/xALcxNa6ED

— Gordon Edes (@GordonEdes) July 28, 2013

MASN’s Steve Melewski criticized Ortiz for being selfish and deflecting the success of his Red Sox team—who was leading 7-2 at the time—onto himself:

With his team winning by 5 runs, David Ortiz just made it all about him. Md Stad Auth, send that bill to Fenway Park for dugout damage.

— Steve Melewski (@masnSteve) July 28, 2013

This type of frustration happens all the time in baseball, particularly when a prolific hitter such as Ortiz was having as bad of a night as he did. Combine that with the unfavorable calls, and it is an environment where players can snap.

Ortiz’s actions certainly won’t go unnoticed in commissioner Bud Selig’s office, so Ortiz may be facing a fine or a suspension.

Or maybe even a bill from Oriole Park at Camden Yards to repair that broken phone.

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Hello, boys and girls. It’s fairy tale time.

Today, we’re going to be learning about the story of how a great hitter came to be.

Once upon a time…

There was a promising young slugger.

This slugger hit with a big stick from the left side, and he was once a top prospect in the minors who showed flashes of his ability and power at the major league level. Alas, he never could seem to stick in the big leagues.

And so the slugger’s team grew tired of the slugger not slugging, and he became a forgotten first baseman, overlooked and underappreciated by his team, which simply chose to move on from all that promise and all that power.

And the slugger was sad.

But then! The slugger got a new team, one that believed in him and wanted him and just knew he could do it if only given the chance.

Well, the slugger was so very grateful that he repaid his new team by hitting so many home runs that he became the true star he was always meant to be—only a handful of years later and in a different land.

And the name of that slugger, boys and girls, is Davis Ortiz.

You see, Davis Ortiz is actually not one, but two sluggers with very similar stories—Chris Davis and David Ortiz. That’s where the name comes from, combining the two last names.

But what’s the moral of the story?

That’s right! Always be patient with future MVP candidates!

Now that we’ve established how closely the Chris Davis’ career arc seems to be mimicking that of David Ortiz, let’s retrace the steps along the way to see how each slugger got to where they are.

In the Minors

All the way back in 1998, Ortiz, who was signed out of the Dominican Republic six years prior, checked in as Baseball America‘s 84th-best prospect in the game. Initially inked by the Seattle Mariners, Ortiz was traded—as a player to be named later—to the Minnesota Twins in 1996.

Davis, by comparison, was the publication’s No. 65 overall prospect prior to the 2008 season—exactly 10 years later—after being drafted in the fifth round in 2006 out of Navarro College in Texas by the Texas Rangers.

They both got to that level of prospect status by doing a lot of mashing. 

Ortiz hit .317 with 31 homers and 124 RBI across three levels in the minors during his breakout 1997 campaign at age 21.

Davis? He went for .297, 36 and 118 across two minor league levels during his breakthrough 2007.

Even though both players showed some serious flaws in their plate discipline—Ortiz sported a 23.9 percent strikeout rate in 1997, while Davis’ was 27.7 percent in 2007—the two also managed to make it to the major leagues for their first taste of The Show within four months of their 22nd birthday.

Early Years in the Majors

Somewhat surprisingly, given not only their still-developing abilities at the time but also the fact that they were eventually given up on by the teams they broke in with, the two sluggers had some immediate, albeit limited, success in the majors.

In his age-22 season of 1998, Ortiz batted .277/.371/.446 with nine homers and 46 RBI in 86 games as a rookie.

Meanwhile, in his age-22 campaign of 2008, Davis slashed .285/.331/.549 with 17 homers and 55 RBI in 80 games as a rook.

Ortiz would actually go on to be fairly productive for the Twins from 2000 through 2002 (.265/.344/.473), whereas Davis went backward with the Rangers, getting mere dribs and drabs in Texas despite raking in the high minors from 2009 through 2011.

And yet, Ortiz was released by Minnesota following the 2002 season. Davis, on the other hand, was traded for reliever Koji Uehara at the deadline in July 2011.

It wasn’t long, though, before the change of scenery worked for each player.

The Breakouts

Ortiz, who was deemed expendable—or so the Twins thought—in part because Minnesota’s top prospect by the name of Justin Morneau was nearly ready, caught on with the Boston Red Sox early in 2003.

The rest is pretty much history.

Then 27 years old, Ortiz put up the first of five consecutive seasons that earned him a top-five finish in the AL MVP race. He hit .288 with 31 homers and 101 RBI right out of the gate with Boston.

As for Davis, he was stuck behind enough corner infielders, from Mike Napoli to Michael Young to Adrian Beltre to Mitch Moreland, to fill a clown car. As Davis recently said while reminiscing about his time with Texas to Stephen Hawkins of the Associated Press:

That was probably the toughest time for me because I was coming off the bench as a utility guy. I knew I wasn’t going to get the chance to play every day and I felt like I was ready for it.

In his first full year after the Baltimore Orioles acquired him, though, Davis went bonkers just like Ortiz had with the Red Sox. As a 26-year-old last year, Davis smashed 33 homers to go with 85 RBI and a .270 average.

It’s also worth pointing out here that in both players’ first full seasons with their new teams, they went to the playoffs—a destination the Red Sox hadn’t reached in the three years prior to Ortiz’s arrival and O’s hadn’t reached in 14 years prior to Davis’.

Becoming an MVP Candidate

Ortiz has remained an MVP-caliber hitter throughout much of his time with Boston, and he’s going as strong as ever in 2013. So far this season, Ortiz is posting a .320/.403/.612 line with 19 homers and 65 RBI.

Obviously, Ortiz is much closer to the end of his career than the beginning. For Davis, the opposite is true, so the comparison can’t be fully embraced until we know more about how Davis’ future plays out in the years to come.

So far, his second year in Baltimore has been even better than the first, as Davis has an MLB-best 37 homers to go with his .311 average and 93 RBI.

Suffice it to say, if Davis’ career turns out anything like Ortiz’s has, well, that would be some kind of story of similarities.

Of course, for Davis to keep pace with Ortiz, he’s going to have to have a real fairy tale ending this season.

Ortiz, you’ll remember, won it all in his second season in Boston.

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If you are wondering how Jose Bautista and David Ortiz are getting to the All-Star Game, they will be traveling by prancercise. 

MLB Fan Cave (h/t Barstool Sports) caught up with the Red Sox slugger as he was getting in some “MLB The Show” time before the big game. 

While hitting home runs with your virtual self is undoubtedly a ton of fun, Ortiz has to get to Citi Field before the Midsummer Classic begins. 

Wanting to get loose before taking some hacks on Tuesday night, Ortiz decided to travel by prancercise, which is really the only way to travel in 2013. 

Thankfully, he was joined by Blue Jays outfielder, Jose Bautista, who is dropping some serious prancing game on the streets of New York. 

For the few of you who have no clue why two MLB stars would be skipping and flailing about, CNN’s Jeanne Moos has an in-depth report on the dancing sensation.  

Joanna Rohrback has gone from anonymous fitness aficionado to the star of a John Mayer music video, all the while causing Internet denizens to get out and capture their own rendition of fancy frolicking. 

Hopefully, this will be the end of the craze that swept the nation out of their seats, skipping and dancing into the streets. 

You can try but will ultimately fail to beat this dynamic duo at the fine art of prancercising. Our only hope is that one of these sluggers decides to walk up to the plate in the same way on Tuesday night. 

Now that might finally solve the game’s slumping ratings. 

Hit me up on Twitter: Follow @gabezal

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Boston sports fans coming off their Stanley Cup hangovers are beginning to notice the Red Sox again, and what they are seeing is a team defying all expectations.

In fact, the Sox are on pace for one of the greatest single-season turnarounds in franchise history.

With exactly half the season (81 games) gone, the Red Sox entered last night’s game against the Blue Jays with a record of 48-33. They then won again, and assuming they keep the same pace through the second half, they would wind up with a mark of 96-66—a 27-game improvement over the dreadful 69-93 season turned in by the last-place Boys of Bobby Valentine in 2012.

That dramatic of a win differential in back-to-back seasons has not occurred in Boston since the MLB schedule expanded to 162 games in 1961. The closest were the “Impossible Dream” Red Sox, who went from a 70-92, ninth-place finish in 1966 to, one year later, a 92-70 mark and the seventh game of the 1967 World Series.

As with all things baseball, numbers tell a big part of the story. Here are some that help define the Red Sox resurgence.

All stats are through Friday, June 28.

Begin Slideshow

David Ortiz has authored some of the greatest hits in Red Sox history and holds the team’s single-season home run record of 54.

Still, Big Papi has never performed at a level closer to that of former Boston slugger Ted Williams than he is doing right now.

Including his home run in Friday night’s 7-3 win over the Astros—his second straight game with a homer—Ortiz is batting .500 (11-for-22) with an OPS of nearly 1.500 since returning from a heel injury that sidelined him most of spring training and the first 16 games of this season.

While most hitters return from major injuries looking rusty at the plate, Papi looks hotter than ever.

It is a trick that the Hall of Famer Williams, acknowledged by many to be baseball’s greatest all-time hitter, performed often during his career.

Injuries, military service, and a few self-imposed “retirements” often kept Ted away from spring training and/or early-season action, but he always seemed to return in top form to the amazement of fans and fellow players alike.

In 1941, for instance, a bad ankle hobbled The Splendid Splinter for a month during the end of spring training and the early season, but he singled as a pinch-hitter in the home opener and batted .462 in his first eight games back en route to a .406 season as the last .400 hitter in big league history.

After a Triple Crown season in 1942 (.356, 37, 137), Ted missed all of 1943-45 while serving as a Navy pilot during World War II. He didn’t skip a beat, however, coming back in 1946 to hit .342 with 38 homers.

Williams served his country yet again as a Marine fighter pilot during the Korean War, and missed most of the 1952 and ’53 seasons. Unlike most big leaguers, he rarely touched a baseball during his absence, yet returned to Boston’s lineup late in 1953 and hit an incredible .407 with 13 home runs and 34 RBI in just 37 games.

On the first day of spring training in 1954, Williams broke his collarbone—an injury that kept him on the shelf for all of the exhibition season and the first month of the regular campaign. Once again, however, he showed he needed no warming up by hitting .455 in his first 10 games back for Boston.

Even when Ted decided he’d quit baseball and start fishing full-time after the 1954 season, and then sat out all of spring training and April in ’55 before a pricey divorce changed his mind, it didn’t matter. He merely hit .414 with six homers and five doubles in his first 53 at-bats when he came back.

So while Ortiz, who also missed all but one of the last 73 games of the 2012, may be doing something astounding, it is not unprecedented in Red Sox history.

Just ask the really old-timers at Fenway Park.

Saul Wisnia lives less than seven miles from Fenway Park and works 300 yards from Yawkey Way. His latest book, Fenway Park: The Centennial, is available at http://amzn.to/qWjQRS, and his Fenway Reflections can be found at http://saulwisnia.blogspot.com. He can be reached at saulwizz@gmail.com and @saulwizz. 

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A week after ending the longest sellout streak in baseball, the Red Sox helped fill their fans’ hearts with pride after one of Boston’s darkest days. Then they continued their own shocking revival.

Nobody could have predicted the horrific events that struck the city on Marathon Monday and few could have anticipated the start that has quickly reestablished the Sox—at least for now—as a viable force in the American League. Timely hitting, near-historic starting pitching and a new attitude infused by new manager John Farrell has resulted in the AL’s best record (13-6, tied with Texas) out of the gate.

Even more surprising than the speed with which Farrell seems to have turned around the clubhouse mojo is how quickly the Red Sox have regained the respect of fans disillusioned by the woeful 2012 season and the calamitous reign of Bobby Valentine.

It is still too early to compare this team to the feel-good squads of 1967 and 1975, but as they did in those memorable summers, the Sox are winning with a roster that has few established superstars but plenty of likable characters for whom it’s easy to cheer.

Here’s a look at the Sox in 6:

Begin Slideshow

In a day marked by emotion and remembrance for the victims and families of the Boston Marathon bombings, David “Big Papi” Ortiz made a memorable return to the lineup this Saturday afternoon when the hometown Boston Red Sox beat the Kansas City Royals for their sixth straight win.

As the longest tenured Red Sox player, Ortiz gave a heartfelt speech prior to the game in front of a sellout crowd of over 37,000 fans.  And though his statement was quick, it was clear and directly to the point.  

Not only that, but it included some very colorful language as he described who the city of Boston belonged to (NSFW video can be seen here).

And while his choice of words may not have been the most appropriate thing to say in front of a large group of attendees that surely included its fair share of children, you have to admire his emotion and pride for the city where he has made his home for the past 10 seasons in the majors.

Ortiz knocked in Boston’s first run of the game in the bottom of the sixth inning with a single that brought Jacoby Ellsbury in to score and went 2-for-4 on the day with two singles.  

No other Red Sox player had more than one hit.

The Red Sox are now first place in the American League East with an 11-4 record, lead Major League Baseball in opposing batting average (.209), are second in team ERA (2.69), are fourth in WHIP (1.13) and are starting to hit the ball consistently in the early part of the 2013 season.  

And while many were skeptical about how the Red Sox would perform this season, they, like the city of Boston, are proving all wrong and are showing the world just how “strong” and resilient this team and their fans really are.  

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The Boston Red Sox made an emotional return to Boston and Fenway Park on Saturday against the Kansas City Royals, led by veteran star David Ortiz, who sparked the crowd with a NSFW (not safe for work) speech.

Life started to return to normal for the city the day after the second of two suspects in the Boston Marathon terrorist bombings was captured. With Friday’s game having been canceled, the prospect of the Red Sox returning to action came as welcome relief to a city exhausted from the bombing tragedy and subsequent week-long manhunt.

The game also marked the return of the Red Sox’s designated hitter, Ortiz, who last played on August 24, 2012 because of an Achilles injury.

The Red Sox honored the victims and first responders of the bombings and investigation Saturday with a lengthy pregame celebration that included video tributes, songs and recognition of individuals.

The ceremony concluded when Ortiz took a microphone and delivered a short but fiery (including the use of a certain four-letter word) speech about the strength and resiliency of Boston that drew raucous cheers from the crowd:

WARNING: The YouTube video below contains adult language

Despite the adult-oriented tone of the speech, it drew immediate praise and appreciation from Boston media and celebrities:

Only @davidortiz could pull that off. Perfection. #RedSox

— Jenny Dell (@JennyDellNESN) April 20, 2013

Big Papi just had the walk-off home run of memorial ceremony speeches

— Seth Meyers (@sethmeyers21) April 20, 2013

Big Papi F bombs the ceremony. Hilarious.

— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) April 20, 2013

Ortiz, affectionately known as “Big Papi,” is entering his 11th season as a member of the Red Sox and is one of the most popular athletes in the history of Boston. He has been part of two World Series-winning teams and became known for his big, friendly personality.

Although Boston still has a lot of healing to do, the few words spoken by Ortiz at Saturday’s game spoke volumes about the resolve of its people and the special place the team and the affable slugger have in the community.

Follow @historianandrew

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