(Think Delta's regretting this choice these days?)

In spite of a persistence to the contrary, Sox manager Terry Francona has finally realized David Ortiz is costing the team runs and dropped him from third to sixth in the order for tonight's game against the Twinkies. J.D. Drew will move up to third and hopefully not suck as bad, while Papi's new lineup protection is a dude that hit less than he weighs last season (Jason Varitek, 230 lbs., .220 2008 AVG). Oh, the irony!

Well this is way past due. I definitely believe you have to let Ortiz work through his struggles and not bench him or bring in some scrub like Nick Johnson to share DH duties, but there's no doubt Big Papi was really starting to negatively effect this team in a big way. After sitting for three straight games, Papi socked his first homer against the Blue Jays in a nice 2-for-5 night on May 20, but since then he's gone 1 for 16 with 7 whiffs and just one walk. Just a couple weeks ago, he left 12 runners on base in a SINGLE GAME, finishing 0 for 7 with three strikeouts against the Angels.

Thanks to the production of guys like Jacoby Ellsbury, Kevin Youkilis, Mike Lowell and even the aforementioned Varitek, Papi's power outage hasn't been too costly to the team. Yet. Hopefully with this move, Captain Clutch will be back to some semblance of his old self soon enough. If not, it'll be an unfortunate and inglorious end to a solid five-year stretch; that, and the re-signing of Jason Bay becomes a whole lot more important to the Sox.