{"id":569049,"date":"2026-02-12T23:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T23:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/569049\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T23:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T23:53:10","slug":"new-boston-red-sox-starter-recalls-making-david-ortizs-list-in-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/569049\/","title":{"rendered":"New Boston Red Sox starter recalls making David Ortiz\u2019s list in 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2014 In 2015, David Ortiz<\/a> wrote a story for The Players\u2019 Tribune<\/a> about the five toughest pitchers he has ever faced.<\/p>\n

New Red Sox starter Sonny Gray, who Boston acquired from the Cardinals on Nov. 25<\/a>, made the list along with Pedro Martinez, Mariano Rivera, Mike Mussina and Carter Capps.<\/p>\n

On Thursday here at JetBlue Park, Gray recalled making Ortiz\u2019s Top 5. Gray, who is now 36, was a 25-year-old pitcher for the Oakland Athletics at the time. He was in his third major league season.<\/p>\n

The topic came up when Gray was asked if he remembers being named in trade rumors to the Red Sox a decade ago. While Gray said he doesn\u2019t remember the rumors, he does remember facing the Red Sox and making Ortiz\u2019s list.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was like, \u2018Yeah, you just don\u2019t know what his ball\u2019s gonna do. And at the time, I didn\u2019t know what my ball was gonna do,\u201d Gray joked. \u201cI would just throw a four-seam, and it would sometimes go that way. … I understand what I\u2019m doing a little bit more now. I remember that, for sure. I don\u2019t remember the other rumors. I\u2019m sure they were there. I feel like I\u2019ve been surrounded with trade rumors my whole career.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ortiz wrote, \u201cThe first time I see this Gray kid on the mound, I can\u2019t help but notice he\u2019s 5\u201910\u201d and skinny. He looks like the guy who fixes my computer at the Apple Store. I\u2019m thinking,\u00a0Here we go. This is gonna be fun.\u00a0Then he took me for a ride, man. Fastball. Sinker. Slider. Curve \u2026 Whap. Whap. Whap. You have no idea what this kid is going to throw. He drives me crazy.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2014 In 2015, David Ortiz wrote a story for The Players\u2019 Tribune about the five…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2375],"tags":[67031,152,5,141,48,2542,3194,4,74951,89,2543,13694,24563],"class_list":["post-569049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boston-red-sox","tag-2026-spring-training","tag-american-league","tag-baseball","tag-boston","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-bostonredsox","tag-greenfly","tag-mlb","tag-pfp","tag-red-sox","tag-redsox","tag-workout","tag-workouts"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116060357522051871","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}