Ortiz Hoping To Return Before End Of Season
BOSTON (CBS) - Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz is still very hopeful he can return to the team this season, and said team doctors told him there is a 60-70-percent chance that happens.
Ortiz will have a PRP (plasma-rich platelet) injection this week, which he and team doctors are hoping will help his ailing right Achilles heal enough for the Boston DH to play in the season's final weeks.
Read: Ortiz Back On DL
"I live for this, and there's not one thing I would like to do more than to be out there for our fans and this organization," Ortiz said Monday morning from the Red Sox dugout. "I'd like to be out there playing for this ball club, my teammates. Those are things that you've definitely got to be healthy to do. The good thing that we talked about today, we're going to try this one PRP injection, see how it goes in the next couple of weeks. If I'm good, I can just go back and play."
Ortiz will undergo shock wave treatment after the season, but has held off that form of treatment because it takes 4-5 weeks of inactivity to recover from.
Ortiz is confident the one thing his offseason won't involve is surgery.
"I don't think I need surgery. I think my problem is more healing thing than anything else," he said. "There's nothing that I need to have fixed. That's part of the reason I want to be careful with it, because I don't want to get to the point where I keep on playing sore. If you're sore, you know that your body is telling you something. If you continue to do damage on top of what you already have, then it comes to surgery. That's why we're trying to be careful with it."
Ortiz returned to the Red Sox lineup Friday night against the Royals, but re-injured his Achilles while legging out a double. Ortiz is batting .318 with a team-leading 23 home runs and 60 RBI this season.
While Ortiz will be focused on recovering during the offseason, the soon-t0-be free agent will also be focused on his future. Right now, he has just one destination in mind: landing back in Boston.
"I always keep telling everyone how important it is for me to be part of this organization. This is what I know. This is something I want to be a part of," said Ortiz. "I know we've been having a lot of issues through the years, but I always try to be honest with you guys. I know it sometimes gets hard to perform at the highest level here, but things will get better. I think a lot of it had to do with how the team was playing at the time. When things are going good, you don't hear any of it. Hopefully for the years to come, we start performing better and all the negativity and stuff goes away."
Ortiz On Next Year:
"It is what it is," he said of his contract situation. "In today's age it's hard to get good players in the free agency market. Unless you go out and trade, it's hard to get a 30-home run hitter. In my case I'm open to whatever with this organization. The one thing I keep in mind is how supportive the fans have been to me through the years. To me, that's the most important thing."
