Cooperstown-electee Jim Rice was flipping through the pages of the Red Sox pre-game media notes when he stopped at the notes on the hitters. He pointed to the name at the bottom of the page and wheeled towards David Ortiz.

“You’ve got to start hitting your weight,” Rice bellowed.

Ortiz, featuring a meager .176 average, .293 OBP and .206 slugging mark prior to last night’s game, seemed amused by the challenge.

“It’s coming up,” he grinned. “First I’ve got to get to (Dustin) Pedroia.”

Informed that Pedroia probably weighs about a buck-seventy, Rice offered a measure of reassurance.

“You’re already there!” said the soon-to-be-Hall-of-Famer.

There was a pause while Ortiz went to fish in his locker for an item. He returned, and flashed a red T-shirt in the face of his heckler.

“I don’t know if you know how to read, but read this,” Ortiz mused.

The front of the shirt proclaimed “It’s not how you start…” Ortiz presented it with the aplomb of Vanna White, then dramatically turned it to reveal the conclusion:

“It’s how you finish.”

Rice agreed.

“When the leaves change,” said the Red Sox great, “you’re going to be there.”

Apparently, the early-season exchange between the two is a common one. Ortiz said that it is a rite of spring for Rice to inform Ortiz that he is not hitting, and that shortly thereafter, the Red Sox’ designated hitter starts mashing. 

“Every year, for some reason, my beginning is not that good,” Ortiz mused.

He recalled the 2003 season, when his hold on a roster spot with the Sox seemed tenuous as he fell behind the likes of Jeremy Giambi in the quest for playing time. On May 1 that year, he was hitting just .200 with one homer and a .635 OPS.

“It can’t get worse than [‘03],” he said. “I wasn’t even playing.” 

Last year, Ortiz was perhaps even worse at the start of the season, hitting .070 with a homer and three runs batted in through the first dozen games of the season. From that point until he suffered the partially torn tendon sheath in his left wrist on May 31, he rebounded to hit .296 / .386 / 580 with 12 homers and 40 RBIs in his next 41 games.

Perhaps, then, Ortiz is close to turning a similar corner this season. Such progress did not occur last night.

Though Ortiz entered the contest with good career numbers (.333 average, .975 OPS) against Orioles starter Jeremy Guthrie, he represented the weak link in the Red Sox lineup during a 10-8 win.

Ortiz was the only member of the Sox lineup without a run or RBI. He went 0-for-4, striking out three times as Orioles pitchers blew fastballs past him up in the zone. With the hat trick, Ortiz has almost twice as many strikeouts (11) as he has hits (6). His average (.158) fell back below Pedroia’s body weight, and he has just one extra-base hit (a double) thus far this year.

The potential explanations are numerous. Perhaps there’s a loss of bat speed. Perhaps he’s not seeing the ball well. Perhaps he’s struggling to anticipate pitch sequences (he implied in Oakland that he had to start looking for off-speed pitches in hitters’ counts).

Or perhaps it’s just a typical slump in which the numbers are exaggerated by the fact that it has come at the beginning of the year. Certainly, it would appear that the Orioles subscribe to that theory.

Baltimore manager Dave Trembley was also asked about what he’s seen from Ortiz, whether he had detected anything that might be causing the slow start. Managers, for obvious reasons, are loath to diagnose the difficulties of players who are not on their team.

But suffice it to say that the Baltimore skipper did not think that Ortiz would finish the year below the Mendoza line. Trembley expressed a mix of amusement and disbelief about the notion of Ortiz being in a slump.

“David Ortiz is a proven big-league hitter, a great player, a run producer, a vital cog in their lineup and a great hitter in the American League,” said Trembley. “Enough said. How could you ask me that question? What do you think I’m going to say about David Ortiz? The darn guy is Babe Ruth against us.”

Ortiz, in fact, was “merely” a .273 hitter with a .402 OBP, .523 slugging mark and 24 homers in his career against Baltimore prior to last night. Though Ortiz did not add to those totals last night, he believes that a correction to his early-season struggles is close at hand.

“Hopefully people are not worried about me,” said Ortiz. “People have been watching me for years. They know what they’re going to get. This is just a few good games and that’s it, you’re back in the groove.”