Starting Five: There Is No More O in Ortiz

Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
That David Ortiz pulled within one homer of Yovanni Gallardo on the MLB leaderboard. Yes, Big Papi finally hit a home run. It took him 149 at-bats to get his first homer of the season, while 318 other players had hit at least one -- including two by Gallardo, a Brewers pitcher -- but Ortiz got on the board with a fifth-inning homer, helping the Sox to a victory over Toronto.

Ortiz had been slumping so badly that manager Terry Francona benched him for the whole series last weekend in Seattle. Ortiz joked after hitting the homer on Wednesday that he was so desperate he was "about to hit right-handed."

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Whether this is really the start of a resurgence for Ortiz or just a blip remains to be seen, but Francona said earlier in the day on a Boston radio station that Ortiz is likely to get hot.

"Even not-so-great players get hot. And David's been an elite player . . . he's not going to go all season hitting .207 with no home runs. When he gets hot, where's it take him? Well, let's find out. I want to live through that before we get too crazy here."

From the Trainers' Room...
Right-hander Stephen Strasburg is not even in the majors yet, but you can bet a lot of folks, especially around the Washington Nationals, were none too pleased to hear that the phenom from San Diego State came out of a start with an injury. Well, the Nats and GM Mike Rizzo can relax. The presumptive No. 1 pick in the draft had only a cramp in his back, and San Diego State pitching coach Rusty Filter said that he was fine within a few hours.

"He's back at the hotel bouncing around like college kids do."

By The Numbers...
It took 1,001 pitches and 7 hours 57 minutes of baseball, but the Marlins and Diamondbacks split a twi-night-morning doubleheader, with Arizona taking the 13-inning, uh, nightcap at 1:48 AM ET. The games were full of memorable moments -- like Justin Upton hitting a pair of three-run homers in Game 2 -- but the day will still go down as one of tragedy for the Diamondbacks. Reliever Scott Schoenweis' wife died suddenly at the family's home back in Arizona.

In Their Own Words...
"It didn't make us laugh, but it really surprised us because we had never seen that. How can you believe that can happen? That's weird." -- Astros catcher Pudge Rodriguez, on the lineup card mixup by manager Cecil Cooper. Cooper put one lineup in the clubhouse and wrote another on the lineup card he handed to the umpire. The result was that Michael Bourn led off the game with an apparent single, but then Kaz Matsui, the scheduled leadoff hitter, was called out and Bourn had to hit again. This was the second big league lineup mistake this week, as Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon had accidentally listed two third baseman in his lineup on Sunday.

Advance Scouting...
As long as Zack Greinke's ERA remains below 1.00, he's going to be the story of the day in the bigs whenever he pitches. Greinke faces the Indians on Thursday afternoon (2:10 PM ET). Greinke is 7-1 with an 0.60 ERA. Dating back to last year, Greinke has made 12 consecutive starts without allowing a homer, the longest Royals streak since Mark Gubicza went 15 in a row in in 1988-89.