Watch: Ortiz takes Wacha over the Green Monster

Rule number one regarding Red Sox postseason games: It always comes back to David Ortiz. St. Louis rookie Michael Wacha held the Sox scoreless through 5 1/3
Watch: Ortiz takes Wacha over the Green Monster
Watch: Ortiz takes Wacha over the Green Monster /

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Rule number one regarding Red Sox postseason games: It always comes back to David Ortiz. St. Louis rookie Michael Wacha held the Sox scoreless through 5 1/3 innings of World Series Game 2 on Thursday night, but issued a one-out walk to Dustin Pedroia in the sixth that brought Big Papi to the plate and sent the Fenway Park crowd into a frenzy.

The fans were no doubt hoping Ortiz would replicate the kind of magic he'd shown earlier in this postseason, first with a two-homer game off the Rays' David Price in the ALDS, then with the ALCS-changing grand slam against the Tigers and finally with a home run in Wednesday night's World Series Game 1 against the Cardinals.

He didn't disappoint. On 3-2, Wacha put an 85 mph changeup on the outside edge of the plate, and The Boston Slugger pounced, pounding it over the Green Monster for a two-run homer:

The home run was just the Red Sox' third hit of the night. It was Ortiz's second homer of the series, fifth of this year's postseason and 17th of his postseason career. The runs ended Wacha's postseason scoreless streak at 19 innings, a rookie record, and proved that the 22-year-old Cardinals phenom is human.

We're still not sure about Ortiz.

SBNation


Published
Jay Jaffe
JAY JAFFE

Jay Jaffe is a contributing baseball writer for SI.com and the author of the upcoming book The Cooperstown Casebook on the Baseball Hall of Fame.