With the Red Sox enjoying their first off-day in over a week, expect the phone lines at WEEI and 985 The Sports Hub to be lighting up with calls about the situation at hand this upcoming weekend.

The most talked about situation heading into the weekend series against Pittsburgh, of course, is what to do with David Ortiz. Do you bench him? Do you put him at first and Adrian Gonzalez at first? Do you put Ortiz at third? Do you put Terry Francona at first, and Ortiz in center? I've heard it all, while listening to callers phone in with attempts to keep Ortiz's bat in the lineup in National League ballparks.

After splitting their homestand 3-3, Boston now heads off on a nine-game road trip with all nine contests being played in NL ballparks. It would be asinine to bench Ortiz for all nine games. Although Gonzalez's bat is more valuable to the club when in the lineup, it would be counterproductive to let Ortiz's hot bat fizzle out on the bench for nine consecutive games over a ten-day span. It's just not logical.

If JD Drew were having anything remotely close to a productive season, it would make Francona's decision a little more difficult, but the fact is that .228/.330/.336 isn't good no matter how you spin it. Drew ranks in the bottom 20 percent among major league outfielders in nearly every offensive category, thus making it fairly easy to remove his bat from the lineup in order to keep Ortiz and Gonzalez in the middle part.

Over the past two years, you didn't hear much about the fight to keep certain bats in the lineup during Interleague play. We already knew that Ortiz was having a major bounce back season, but as BaseballAnalytics.org points out, Ortiz "punched out in just 11.1 percent of his plate appearances this season, compared to 23.9 percent in 2010. If you click the aforementioned link, you'll see that Ortiz is absolutely murdering fastballs this season when in recent years, many have speculated that his bat speed was gone, and was not coming back.

It goes without saying that when putting an All Star player in a position that he's not familiar with, there's a certain risk involved. It's also added pressure on the manager when that particular All Star player just so happens to be the best player in baseball.

In his weekly appearance on WEEI's Mut and Merloni show, Hall of Fame writer Peter Gammons said, "I just think it's dangerous. If Gonzalez runs into a wall or something, you lose him for three weeks. That’s a lot worse than losing two out of three in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh."

That might be true, but baseball is a strange game. Gonzalez very well could get hurt while playing in the outfield, but this is a game where guys have spent time on the disabled list for sleeping wrong, sneezing, arguing with an umpire, and walking down stairs. The point is, injuries happen. If they're going to stick Gonzalez in left, and someone like Josh Reddick, Mike Cameron or Darnell McDonald in right, one thing's for certain; if the Red Sox can win two World Series with Manny Ramirez in left field, then they can get by three National League series with Gonzalez in left field.

Never a fan of having separate rules between to two leagues in the MLB, Gammons expanded on his opinion, saying, "I think [Terry Francona] might use Gonzalez for a couple of games, one in left field in Philadelphia and one in left field in Houston, which are both short,” Gammons said. "Otherwise, I don't think they will get too fancy. I think they will rely on their pitching to get by. It’s tough, they are both in the top five offensive players in the American League, but as long as baseball plays by two different rules, this is one of the things you have to live with."

Although I don't entirely agree with the idea of having Gonzalez play the outfield for only two games, the decision of which corner to put him in also seems to be an issue, as the Providence Journal reports that if Gonzalez is to play in the outfield, it'll be in right field, not left as Gammons said on the radio.

I'm interested to see what everyone else thinks about this. Do you play Gonzalez in the outfield? If so, for how many games? Does Gonzalez ever sit during the nine-game road trip? How many games does Ortiz sit for?

This is where Francona earns his money, folks.