Papi puts issues with Price aside

BOSTON -- Red Sox slugger David Ortiz is ready to put past differences with David Price behind him and welcome the ace into his clubhouse.

"That's fine. We need pitching, and David Price is a great pitcher and has showed that for years. I hope he will help us," Ortiz said in an interview with 102.5 FM in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on Wednesday. "It's a marquee pitcher, and that's what we need."

While Price's seven-year, $217 million agreement with the Red Sox is pending a physical, the deal is expected to formally be announced by the end of the week.

Ortiz, who recently announced he will retire at the end of the 2016 season, is looking forward to spending a year with Price in the quest for another World Series ring.

"No problems," Ortiz said. "All that's in the past. Now he is my partner. When a person joins your cause, you must leave the past in the past."

The first signs of trouble between Ortiz and Price happened following Game 2 of the 2013 American League Division Series. Ortiz clubbed two home runs that night to lead the Red Sox to victory, and Price later made thinly-veiled references to not appreciating the way the slugger took his time to watch his home run and run around the bases.

When Price next faced Ortiz on May 30, 2014, he hit him in the back with the first pitch of the first at-bat.

"I had a lot of respect for the guy, man, but it's over," Ortiz said that night. "I have no more respect for him. Last year we kicked his [butt] in the playoffs, he went off, talking [trash] about everybody. It is a war. It's on. Next time he hits me, he better bring the gloves. I have no respect for him no more."

Price would later say that Ortiz sometimes acts as if "he's bigger than the game."