There has been much speculation in New England that David Ortiz's career as a power hitter is over. Aside from the stats, bystanders have claimed that his bat speed is dramatically reduced and that his physique looks even worse than usual. But today I heard Jerry Remy dispute those claims and say that Ortiz is just pressing. Right now, Remy claims, Ortiz is concentrating on hitting to the opposite field and hoping that his pull power returns on its own.

I don't have enough information to judge those things for myself, but let's look at the numbers. Here are his last 23 games through Tuesday night (dating back to last season):

That's 22 hits in 23 games, including no homers and just 10 extra-base hits for a .647 OPS. All players go through slumps, but this one is pretty bad.

Interestingly, this is not the longest streak in Ortiz's career without a homer. Here they are:

 StreakStart  Streak End Games    AB    R    H   2B  3B  HR  RBI  SO   BB   SB   CS   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  Teams
+-----------+-----------+-----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
  1998-09-12  2000-06-07    52    143   10   34  10   0   0   19   34   14    1   0  .238  .304  .308  .612 MIN

  2002-04-18  2002-07-04    42    127   10   31  11   0   0   19   20   12    0   0  .244  .299  .331  .630 MIN

  2000-07-08  2000-08-16    34    120   20   40  12   0   0   19   22   16    0   0  .333  .403  .433  .836 MIN

  1998-07-18  1998-08-23    29    100   14   19   5   0   0   10   25   16    1   0  .190  .308  .240  .548 MIN

  2008-09-23  2009-04-28    23     92   12   22   9   1   0   13   23    7    0   1  .239  .288  .359  .647 BOS

The good news is that Ortiz has a long way to go before his current streak (5th on the list) reaches to top. The bad news is that the four longer streaks all came when he was still with the Twins, before he became the power hitter he was at his height with the Red Sox.

What surprises me is the degree to which Ortiz has dropped off. All players age and all players eventually retire. But few drop off so suddenly. I'm personally inclined to think that he still has some sort of injury that's limiting his performance.