David Ortiz has a meniscus tear in his right knee. Apparently this has been the case since last year. Before everyone jumps the gun and starts pointing fingers, you have to understand what this actually means.

The meniscus is the padding that sits in your knee between the bones. It is cartilage, so it is fairly strong, but an injury to it is not like having a bone broken. To understand what the material is, grab your and try moving it around. Its fairly hard, but is at its core, is just padding. Here is an MRI, showing a knee.

Often times, an injury like this is ignored. In fact, if you have ever twisted your knee playing something like basketball or soccer, you probably have meniscus tears as well. You’ll have some soreness but unless its really swelling up, it is no cause for concern. But when you are a professional athlete, its a much bigger deal. David Ortiz is a big guy, and when he is swinging his body around to hit the ball, he is putting a lot of stress on his knees. He’s a guy who really hits with his legs more so than anything (vs. a guy like Gary Sheffield who is all arms) and is depending on his knees. This can definitely explain the lack of power in his numbers this year. You can’t put you’re whole body behind a swing if you are favoring one leg, which has driven him to hitting more singles and line drives rather than the towering shots everyone is expecting.

Another thing about meniscus is that it doesn’t grow. A torn meniscus doesn’t ever heal on its own. Typically, there is a small fray (most likely in this case) and the only way to ‘fix’ it is to go in there and literally cut the tear off. Think of the last time you had a hang nail - you don’t tape the hanging part down to your finger and hope it’ll reattach - you just cut it off.

The tissue wears down naturally, especially when your knees are carrying a lot of weight. If you start cutting it out as well, you will eventually run out. David Wells, for example, is really fat and top heavy and his knees take a beating. He has had many knee surgeries and at this point, there is hardly any meniscul tissue left. When his knee twists, it has to be very painful because it is essentially bone on bone.

This is why, when its not overly bothersome, it is ignored. Here is a good quote from the Globe’s article, Hurting Ortiz acknowledges knee injury.

“Even if an MRI showed a tear, unless it clearly and significantly keeps a player from performing, there’s no reason to do anything with it,” orthopedic surgeon Jeffery Dugas said at the time Ramírez was hurt. “If he can play his position, hit, run on it, he can continue to play. An MRI is such a sensitive test, sometimes you can overread it.”

So in conclusion, if he has been playing without pain for so long, surgery isn’t needed. After all, it was hurting the most in cold weather, and if you’ve noticed, its summer and like 90 every day. This will probably be forgotten in a couple days, especially if Ortiz has a few good games on this home stretch. He’ll most likely have the procedure done in the off season. Its only a couple weeks recovery time and limited rehab, so its really not a big deal in the end.

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 13th, 2007 at 11:23 am and is filed under General Postings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.