David Ortiz caps huge game with milestone walk-off double
Saturday belonged to David Ortiz.
The ageless Boston Red Sox star finished his team’s 6-5, 11-inning victory against the Houston Astros just a single shy of the cycle, but he made each of his other three hits count in a significant way.
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The biggest one was the final one. With the game tied in the 11th inning and Xander Bogaerts on first base, Ortiz reached a milestone, launching his 600th career double to center field. This allowed Bogaerts to score the game-winner, and it put Ortiz in truly elite territory.
Those are incredible numbers. The 513 homers are impressive enough, but stacked on top of 600 doubles? That’s pretty amazing. That takes remarkable consistency over a 20-year career, and that’s exactly what Ortiz has been.
Then, there’s this.
When you double 600 times and walkoff the opponent 20 times, we think we can justify swiping a bag.
As we noted, all three of Ortiz’s hits were significant. Rewinding to the third inning, that’s where Ortiz connected for a solo home run off Houston starter Collin McHugh. The home run was No. 513 in Ortiz’s remarkable career, which moved him past Hall of Famers Ernie Banks and Eddie Mathews and into sole possession of 22nd place on the all-time home run list.
So we’ve established there was a good beginning and a good ending. There was also a huge hit in between that Boston couldn’t have won without. With two outs and the tying run on base in the ninth inning, Ortiz extended the game by doing something he hadn’t done since June 15, 2013. He tripled.
Ortiz’s rocket was just out of the reach of a diving Jake Marisneck, who was playing center field in place of Carlos Gomez. Perhaps Gomez catches it, perhaps he doesn’t, but the dive definitely allowed Ortiz to motor around to third base and allowed him to have a game unlike any he’s had since 2006.
There’s a reason Ortiz has never hit for the cycle. Even in his younger days, games like this were a rarity, but we’re quite thankful he gave us one more before retiring at season’s end.
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Oh, who are we kidding. The way Ortiz is hitting right now, he may have several more left in him. If these first few weeks are any indication, Ortiz is going out with a bang, which is what we should have expected all along.
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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Townie813
