David Ortiz returns to All-Star game with Derby win

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David Ortiz came into the Home Run Derby on Monday with no strategy except to be the last one to get tired.

It worked. Ortiz followed an eight homer performance in the first round with 13 in the second and 11 in the finals -- enough to win him the Derby championship over Hanley Ramirez, who hit just five homers in the final round.

It was the Red Sox slugger’s fourth Home Run Derby and Ramirez’s first.

Ortiz is back in the All-Star game after failing to make the team in 2009, which he finished with a batting average of .238. Before that, he appeared in five consecutive All-Star games.

‘After last year a lot of people started kind of writing him off or whatnot,’ said Ryan Howard, a good friend of Ortiz. ‘People have off years.’

-- Laura Myers