Boston Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz reached 500 career home runs Saturday night against the Tampa Bay Rays, hitting two homers at Tropicana Field to reach the career milestone.
Ortiz hit his first home run of the game in the first inning off of pitcher Matt Moore and he later hit his second home run off of Moore in the fifth inning. According to ESPN.com, Ortiz is the 27th player in major league history to reach the mark and he is also the fourth player from the Dominican Republic to get to 500 career home runs.
Ortiz has had a strong second half to the baseball season and he has been one of the main stories of optimism for the Red Sox in a year that has been one to forget. Ortiz started off slow and only had six home runs in early June, but he has been battling back and has put up some historic numbers for a player his age. Ortiz is nearly 40 years old and he has 28 home runs on the season after his latest achievement.
Ortiz has already established himself as one of the best designated hitters and Red Sox players of all-time and now he is alongside Manny Ramirez, Jimmie Foxx and Ted Williams as Red Sox players who have hit 500 home runs. Sammy Sosa, Manny Ramirez and Albert Pujols are the other Dominican natives that have reached the mark.
Ortiz has been on fire this summer, as ESPN writes that he had a stretch of 255 at-bats that saw him hit 25 home runs. That rate is one of the best for Ortiz during his career and is a higher clip than what Barry Bonds did in one of his record setting seasons. Ortiz has shown that he can still hack it at his age and he likely will be around the Red Sox for a few more years if he can keep it up. The biggest question about Ortiz is the Hall of Fame, as there are some PED issues in the past, but he likely will get voted in after all he has done.
