David Ortiz Called Out Dan Shaughnessy After 27-Game Hitting Streak Ends

David Ortiz went 0-for-5 Wednesday night in Boston’s 15-8 loss at Fenway to the Twins, and the slugger’s 27-game hitting streak – dating back to last season – is over.

Afterward, the usually genial Ortiz took to Twitter, as you do, calling out Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy.

At issue is this column Shaughnessy wrote Wednesday.

Ortiz missed Spring Training with an Achilles injury and is batting .381 with 17 RBIs in 16 games since returning to the Boston lineup on April 20. He’d also been slugging over .800 until Wednesday night.

Since this is Major League Baseball in the post-PED – well maybe post-PED era – there’s always going to be some insinuation that the only way a 37-year-old could hit like this would be due to some sort of foreign substance giving him a boost.

Shaughnessy’s column is basically 800 or so words of him asking Ortiz a series of questions barely tip-toeing around the steroid issue with Big Papi getting angrier and angrier with each answer.

Here’s a smattering of Ortiz’s answers to Shaughnessy’s line of questioning:

"“Where are you trying to go with this? That’s my question. If you work hard, you’re not supposed to get better?’’ “I just don’t want no misunderstanding ’cause I got no time for this [expletive] right now.’’ “I don’t care about what people say, bro. People don’t feed my family. I feed my family.” “You are never going to make everybody happy, bro. That’s the bottom line. If you struggle, it’s bad. If you do well, it’s bad, too.” “I guarantee you that later, you are not going to find out that I tested positive for some [expletive]. It’s not happening. Guaranteed. Guaranteed.’’"

Where were reporters asking these types of questions in the summer of 1998?

This is the bed MLB and the MLBPA, along with a tacit media, made when it comes to PEDs.

Do most fans at this point even care? Shaughnessy based the premise of his column on Toronto fans chanting “steroids” during Ortiz’s at-bats. Were those fans in Toronto genuinely morally outraged that a player might use PEDs? Or wasn’t it simply a way to heckle the opponent?

As if we didn’t know already, Shaughnessy is clearly not a chill bro, bro. [via Boston Globe]