David Ortiz was back on the baseball field Sunday, but not as a player. The former Red Sox slugger was the manager for the World Team in the Futures Game in Washington D.C., which kicked off All-Star week.
Prior to the game, Ortiz met with reporters and touched on a few subjects, including the current state of the Red Sox, who enter the break a major league-best 68-30.
"Man, this is the first time I'm sitting down to watch baseball, eating popcorn," Ortiz said to reporters. "It's like watching a movie and you know how it's gonna end. The guys are doing great. I'm so happy for everything that is going on in the organization."
"I've gotta tell you, my boys...they ain't playing, bro," he added. "These guys' offense is ridiculous. We've had years where we've had that type of offense, but it's like we're expecting two or three hits from Mookie [Betts] and J.D. [Martinez] every night."
Ortiz has been particularly impressed with Betts.
"[He] is always hungry," Ortiz said. "This guy, even when he's doing well ... he wants to do better. That's the kid that I saw coming up with us. Mookie goes two days without getting things done the way he likes it and he starts going crazy. Sometimes, people believe that you only learn from the veterans. No. You learn from guys like him. Me watching him acting like that, me being the veteran, I was like, 'Man, I like that.'"
As for Dustin Pedroia, who Ortiz knows the best, he noted how tough it is for him not being able to be on the field.
"Pedroia is so frustrated right now," Ortiz said. "Everybody who knows Pedroia knows that the guy loves being on the field. Not being able to, because of his knee, I can tell you is killing him. It is just killing him. Hopefully things get better so he can go back on the field so we can watch the little guy that we know."
The slugger also was asked about defensive shifts and his thoughts on them. Ortiz joked they probably took "500" hits away from him.
"I think taking a hit on a play with somebody diving is different than sitting down and waiting in the right-field grass or the left-field grass," Ortiz said. "It seems crazy, it seems like it's taking some fun part of the game away. I heard MLB is trying to do something about it but I doubt that they do something different because it seems like, percentage-wise, winning and losing the games, how a manager positions his players, it seems like they're getting the benefit of winning."
High-A Salem right-hander Bryan Mata was the Red Sox' lone representative in the game.
