Before there was David Ortiz, there was Orlando Cepeda.
Cepeda, whose death at the age of 86 was announced by the San Francisco Giants on Friday night, played only one of his 17 years in the majors and 142 of his 2,124 career big league games with the Boston Red Sox.
We join our baseball family in mourning the loss of Orlando Cepeda, who gave so much to the game.
— Red Sox (@RedSox) June 29, 2024
He played a season for the Red Sox in 1973, serving as the club’s first designated hitter. Our thoughts are with the Cepeda family. https://t.co/tGlaoaeMYm
His numbers, especially for a player in his penultimate major league season at the age of 35, were more than respectable. Cepeda collected 159 hits while batting .289 with 20 home runs and 86 RBIs in the 1973 season, which concluded with Boston going 89-73 to finish second in the AL East.
Cepeda would retire after playing only 33 games for Kansas City the following season. It would be easy to look at his lone season with the Sox as a blip in the radar of a storied and Hall of Fame career, but it was an important one in Red Sox history.
The former National League MVP, 11-time All-Star, 1967 World Series champion and former Rookie of the Year spent his first eight-plus seasons in the bigs with the Giants before joining the St. Louis Cardinals in 1966 and spending the next four seasons with Atlanta and Oakland.
As the story goes, when the AL instituted the then (and still, for some reason) designated hitter rule before the ’73 season, the Red Sox came calling to Cepeda with the offer to be their inaugural DH.
Intrigued by the prospect of only having to hit as knee issues mounted, Cepeda accepted — and in the process, became the first player to sign a contract exclusively to play as a DH. And although his stay in Boston was brief, he wasted little time endearing himself to the locals — his first hit with the Sox was a walk-off homer to beat the rival New York Yankees 4-3.
His season-long efforts earned him the first-ever Outstanding Designated Hitter Award.
Cepeda doesn’t hold any major Red Sox records, and most may not have even remembered that Cepeda even played in Boston. But Orlando Cepeda walked (figuratively and literally — 50 times during his lone season with the Sox, actually. Third-most in his career…) so David Ortiz and other DHs could run.
Without Cepeda, who knows? Maybe the DH position never truly catches on in baseball, and players with big bats but poor gloves never get the chance to shine. For that, Boston will always be thankful.
Rest in peace, Orlando.
Coming soon, Triston Casas
Triston Casas is finally swinging a bat, but not soon enough for him to be able to return from a cartilage tear in his rib cage by his target date of July 2.
According to Alex Cora on Saturday, Casas is taking some swings in the indoor cage — he estimated about 30 — and was scheduled to swing again on Sunday.
“He obviously has general soreness,” Cora said. “I’m not sure if he’s going to go on the field, but he feels that it went OK with the swings.”
Casas’ return will certainly be welcomed for more reasons than one. The promising young first baseman could be key in taking Boston’s recent season resurgence to the next level as they try to make a push for more than just the final AL wild card.
Additionally, I can’t speak for everybody, but the Dominic Smith experience is getting a little old for me. It’s been a rotating door ever since Casas got hurt in late April, with Boston bringing in Garrett Cooper and later Smith to try to fill the void.
Cooper was DFA’d and Smith is now 0 for his last 13 and slashing just .211/.309/.317 in 47 games with the Red Sox this season. And I haven’t even mentioned the errors… he’s committed five.
So, while Casas isn’t likely to be back by the start of Boston’s three-game set in Miami, the fact that he’s finally swinging a bat — and not just in his head — is a good indicator that his return won’t be too far off.
My guess? The start of the second half of the schedule after the All-Star break is a more realistic target.
Now, as for Vaughn Grissom… the news isn’t as encouraging. It’s been one thing after another for the team’s second baseman of the future this season, and Cora didn’t give any indication that Grissom is on track for a return anytime soon.
“He didn’t have spring training. He had the rehab assignment. He got sick. He gets hurt here,” said Cora, referring to the re-aggravation of his hamstring injury suffered during the spring. “We have to make sure, first things first, that he’s stronger, and then after that we map it out.”
Grissom’s value to the 2024 team would be primarily on the defensive side, as even with his struggles at the plate in limited action, he presents a better defensive option than Enmanuel Valdez and David Hamilton…
Trouble in paradise
It’s been far from a Bronx Paradise for the New York Yankees of late…
Boston’s bitter AL East rival still has a comfortable 8 1/2 game lead over the Sox in the division, but the Yanks are no longer sitting on top of it.
With a comeback 6-5 win on Saturday night, coupled with New York’s blowout 9-3 loss to Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s Blue Jays (I’ll take my victory lap now…), Baltimore now sits atop the AL East with a one-game lead.
Overall, New York has dropped five of six and is 3-10 since cruising to an 8-1 victory in the series opener in Boston on June 14.
The news only got worse on Saturday, too, as the newest Yankees star, Juan Soto, was held out of the lineup with a bruised right hand. X-rays were negative, but it’s the latest in a string of unfortunate events for the Bronx Bombers.
Boston’s strong play of late (before losing the series to San Diego, and more on that coming later Sunday…) coupled with New York’s struggles have put them back within striking distance in the division.
It’s still an uphill climb, and while they've shown you can compete with the Yankees, the Sox have yet to prove they can truly compete with the O’s. Boston will have another crack at New York next weekend and won’t see Baltimore again until mid-August.
In the meantime, continuing to rip off wins against inferior opponents could make this a much more interesting divisional race than we had anticipated…
Gethin Coolbaugh is a columnist for Boston Sports Journal. Follow him @GethinCoolbaugh on X/Twitter.