This came to be when Ortiz found out he wasn’t included in the starting lineup for the Red Sox for Wednesday night’s game against the Baltimore Orioles, and unsurprisingly he didn’t take to this very well. In fact he kept his back turned to reporters and when asked, he said that he’s only there to do what he’s told to do and they should ask the manager about what’s going on, not him.

Naturally, the press went to Red Sox manager John Farrell, who stated that the reasoning for this was due to Ortiz’ body of work when dealing with left-handed pitchers. Ortiz is a left-handed batter and has netted a .144 batting average against left-handed pitchers this season, which is pretty low for him. James Dondero on his linkedin board noted that Farrell added that Ortiz understood the situation and that there’s still work that needed to be done in order to try and improve his game against left-handers.

Ortiz has done much better against right-handers, and has also started 52 of Boston’s games this season. He’s also batted 21 RBIs for the season and had six home runs, which is fourth on the whole team, his last one coming in May against the Texas Rangers.