More than any player in franchise history, David Ortiz taught even the most cynical Red Sox fans that refusing to give up sometimes results in the sweetest rewards.

So the inclination is to resist giving up on him. The man deserves that much, at least under normal circumstances.

Of course, there's a particularly cruel catch here: The circumstances are no longer normal; they are dire. And believing in the artist formerly known as Big Papi has become an increasingly difficult task even for the most optimistic Red Sox fan.

I'm sure you require no in-depth recap of his sad capers through the season's first 35 games, which is cool since I don't particularly feel like giving you one. So here's the Reader's Digest condensed version: He's batting .208. His next home run this spring will be his first. He's been wandering between lost and hopeless all season. It's a challenge to recall more than two or three times when he has hit the ball hard all season. He's not getting better, but he might be getting worse. Any further detail would just be piling on.

The tipping point came during yesterday's aggravating 12-inning loss to the Angels in which Ortiz had one of the most dismal offensive performances in the history of the Red Sox. He went 0 for 7, stranding a club-record 12 baserunners, which I'm fairly sure is more than A-Rod has left on base in all of his tense Octobers combined. In the aftermath, a dejected Ortiz said the words that many of us feel guilty for thinking:

"I'm sorry, guys. I just don't feel like talking right now," he told the media. "Just put down, 'Papi stinks.' "

It's hard to deny his sad sentiments, though one can't fault him for not wanting to answer questions right now -- especially the three most difficult ones:

Why is this happening now? What caused it? And is there any hope of recovering from this?

Perhaps he doesn't hold the answers. Perhaps he's as puzzled as the rest of us. Perhaps there are details he would prefer not to share. But because his career has devolved into one enormous question mark, we are left with nothing but some common facts and a heaping helping of speculation to try and solve this mystery.

Maybe effects of last summer's wrist injury, or the various other ailments he's endured the past couple of years (knees, shoulder) have conspired to slow him down. Maybe this is another example, like Mo Vaughn and Cecil Fielder before him, of an enormous, one-dimensional slugger losing his bat speed overnight. Maybe he's older than his listed age of 33 (he signed with the Mariners in 1992 at the age of 16, wink-wink). Or maybe it's something more sinister, something that has irreparably damaged the reputations of so many of his power-hitting peers.