David Ortiz: Red Sox Should Do 'Whatever It Takes' To Sign Jon Lester
BOSTON (CBS) -- For all but two months of Jon Lester's nine-year big league career, David Ortiz has been a teammate of the left-hander. And as he is watching Lester shop his services via free agency, Ortiz wants to be teammates once again.
Ortiz spoke to reporters at his annual charity golf tournament in Punta Cana, and he made it very clear that he's pulling for the Red Sox to sign the free-agent pitcher.
"Me and Lester, during the season, we talk a lot, and this is a guy that loves Boston," Ortiz said, according to the Boston Herald. "If I'm the Red Sox, I would do whatever it takes to keep a guy like that because that's a guy who brings everything he has every day to the field."
Ortiz, entering his 13th season with the Red Sox, certainly has a fair amount of pull with the front office. He's publicly negotiated his way to healthy contract extensions of his own in the past, and he's made appeals through the media for the team to add bats to the lineup to protect him. That wish appears to have been granted with the acquisitions of Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez.
"I was excited," Ortiz told The Boston Globe about those signings, before adding the sobering question: "Now what about the pitching?"
Ortiz has seen firsthand what Lester can do on the mound, as Lester won 110 games and posted a 3.64 ERA in 242 regular-season appearances for the Red Sox. He also owns a 6-4 record and 2.11 ERA in the postseason.
The Red Sox' elder statesman knows what Lester can do, and he hopes the Red Sox do what's necessary to acquire those services. All that's left to do is for the team to "man up."
"He was devastated when he got traded , and I know that. I can personally tell you that. But this is business, and I know he understands that," Ortiz said, per the Herald. "So now is the time for us to step up, man up, and try to make the guy happy."
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