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| Ortiz has tripled in 10 straight seasons
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David Ortiz still doesn't have a homer, but he just blasted a triple off the wall in deep left-center field at Fenway Park, driving in two runs to put the Red Sox up 6-1 in their Patriots' Day matchup against the Orioles.
Amazingly, Ortiz now has at least one triple in 10 straight seasons despite a total of just 13 three-baggers in 5,487 career plate appearances. Throughout baseball history there are just 16 players with more plate appearances and fewer triples than Ortiz, including teammate Mike Lowell.
Here are the all-time leaders in plate appearances among guys with fewer than 13 triples:
3B PA Frank Thomas 12 10074 Jason Giambi 9 7827 Boog Powell 11 7810 Mike Piazza 8 7745 Mark McGwire 6 7660
The entire list of 16 is basically a who's who of slow, fat, and catcher. Carlos Lee fits at least one of those categories, although his managing just 12 triples in 6,255 plate appearances is somewhat strange for a guy with 110 career steals.
If you're curious, Johnny Estrada has the most plate appearances among players with zero career triples at 2,244. Not surprisingly, he hits the "slow, fat, and catcher" trifecta.
After the triple, Ortiz is up to .196/.271/.275 on the year.
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Is this a slow start, age starting to show, or lack of "Manny-protection"? Or all of the above?
It's either a slow start or lingering problems from the wrist injury. Lack of protection is pretty unlikely since the guy replacing Manny in the 4 spot is hitting over .400 and finished in the top 3 in MVP voting last season.
I would definitely qualify Estrada as a "catcher" (of course) and "slow," but "fat" may be a stretch.
whats real interesting is that manny has only 18 career triples, but has not had more than 1 a year since 2001 (when he had 2) in 7653 total plate appearances