Ortiz ahead of schedule, not fully recovered

Talking on WEEI's Hot Stove show Thursday night, David Ortiz said that after being examined by Red Sox team doctors, his injured right Achilles tendon was healing well, although it still had some ways to go to be 100 percent.

"I'm feeling pretty good. I had some of the team doctors right here, they just left. They went back to Boston after checking me out," Ortiz said by phone from the Dominican Republic. "Yesterday I started doing some agility drills, and that felt good. Tomorrow I'm going to continue doing it. After that if everything goes good I'm going to start doing my running. They found that I was doing good and I was pretty much ahead of the plan that they had.

"I'm not fully recovered. They say now with the new things that I'm going to be doing I'm probably going to get sore until I get used to it because I haven't been doing any running or agility for the past three or four months. But they said I'm looking pretty good."

Ortiz was limited to just 90 games after being forced from the Red Sox lineup due to his Achilles injury, suffered on July 16. He would play in one more game -- on Aug. 24 -- before being shut down for the season.

After the regular season, Ortiz underwent ultrasound therapy on his injury, [1] which limited the designated hitter's mobility for four weeks, while putting him in a walking boot for a week. He explained that the treatment did appear to have a positive effect.

"I think so," said Ortiz when asked if the ultrasound treatment had made a difference. "I think that everything the doctors down in Boston, everything that they did was pretty much the best things you could do when it comes down to that. I'm seeing the result now because … Sometimes it takes longer than people expect, but you have to do the best for it."

To listen to the interview, click here [2]. For more Red Sox news, go to the team page at weei.com/redsox [3].