Red Sox trainer: David Ortiz was ‘essentially playing on stumps’

Retired Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz put together one of the most productive farewell campaigns of any athlete in recent memory in 2016, but apparently he was in much worse physical shape than the numbers would have had you believe.

In an interview with Rob Bradford of WEEI, Red Sox coordinator of sports medicine services Dan Dyrek revealed the extent of the lower body injuries Ortiz played through in the final stages of his 20-year MLB career.

“He had such longstanding inflammation that he scarred down heavily in multiple joints of the ankle and that created abnormal loading and forces in all the soft tissues,” Dyrek said of the 10-time All-Star, who had dealt with foot pain for the last few years. “So the joints were restricted from the inflammation that caused the scar tissue over time. And then the muscles and tendons were all being abnormally loaded, and they got scarred down.

“He was essentially playing on stumps,” Dyrek continued. “Instead of having this nice, flexible, foot, ankle, calf mechanism to act as a shock absorber, he was playing on stumps. And you can do that for only so long. He was in warrior mode trying to play through this. Once we diagnosed him and saw what was going on and started explaining things to him, there was actually a sense of relief because now he had an explanation of what he was in such excruciating pain.”

Ortiz was nevertheless magnificent in his age-40 campaign, batting .315/.401/.620 with 38 home runs and 127 RBIs (tied for first in the American League) while appearing in 151 games. Though many seem to think that Big Papi still has what it takes to keep playing (even Ortiz himself has admitted that he would rather not be retiring), now we know exactly why the Boston legend had to hang up his cleats after this year.