''There are a lot of haters out there," said Sox designated hitter and native Dominican David Ortiz, who combined with his Spanish-speaking brethren -- Edgar Renteria (Colombia), Manny Ramirez (Dominican Republic) and Roberto Petagine (Venezuela) -- to account for nine hits, eight runs, and eight RBIs in yesterday's 11-7 win over the Twins, which prevented the Sox from being swept.
''You don't speak the language, but you make a lot of money; they want to make it worse on you," Ortiz said. ''That happens a lot. That's hating. That's life, you know."
Alex Cora (Puerto Rico) went hitless in four trips and also made two throwing errors, but with the Sox jumping out to a 5-0 lead after one and 10-3 after they'd hit in the seventh, the miscues did not leave lasting scars, and Cora was able to give Bill Mueller a much-needed day off.
Petagine is the newbie on the list. He had gone seven years between major league hits -- a single while batting between the Boone brothers, Bret and Aaron, on the Cincinnati Reds -- before he cleared the bases of three Sox runners with his fourth-inning double yesterday. You can forgive the 34-year-old Petagine, who had spent the interim stamping himself as the best gaijin (foreign-born) slugger in Japan, a tick behind native hero Hideki Matsui, for getting cut down trying to stretch the hit into a triple. It had been a while.
''It was good, very good, I'm very excited after all these years to get a hit," said Petagine, who came up a highly touted prospect with Houston but went to San Diego in 1995, when a young Theo Epstein was still posting birthday messages on the Padres' Jumbotron scoreboard, in an 11-player deal between the Padres and Astros, the same deal that brought stars Ken Caminiti and Steve Finley to San Diego.
His first big-league hit came that year off Astros pitcher Doug Brocail, who went to Houston in the same trade.
