LAKELAND, Fla. -- If outfielders were allowed to use scooters, J.D. Martinez might be ready for Opening Day. With his injured right foot elevated, he maneuvers the hallways of Tigertown with enough speed and agility that he could probably roam right field.
It's all he can do to avoid going crazy as he waits out the week with his sprained right foot in a cast.
"'You don't want to sweat,'" Martinez said, quoting his doctor. "You train all offseason to come sit here for two weeks, not do anything and lose it. I'm like, 'Come on, dude.'
"It's just miserable. It's already miserable. You just want to stick a coat hanger in there and scratch, but they told me not to."
Even so, Martinez is trying to think positive. He's expecting good news when doctors remove the cast from his foot early next week. He's planning to fight his best to try to meet or beat the initial three- or four-week timetable doctors put on his return to game activity.
And yet, Martinez also knows that with a lisfranc ligament sprain in the middle of his foot, those three or four weeks are anything but certain.
"It's tricky. That's what the doc said," Martinez said. "He said there's no real, set table. So to say three, four weeks is what I'm hoping for, but it's one of those things you have to monitor week to week. So that's kind of what I'm doing."
How Martinez feels when the cast is removed will reveal a lot about his timetable.
"If I get out of the boot and it feels good, we're good," Martinez said. "If I get out of the boot and it hurts, then we fly out [to Charlotte again] and see Dr. [Robert] Anderson. But as far as me, I'm just trying to stay positive and trying to do what I can mentally to try to speed it up."
Part of that outlook is to count his blessings that the injury happened in Spring Training, the product of an aborted sliding catch a week and a half ago, rather than in the middle of the season. If the timetable holds, half of it will have taken place in Spring Training, before the games count. The rest will take place in April, when the Tigers have a fair share of scheduled days off early, plus the potential for weather-related postponements.
"But we'll see, man," Martinez said. "We have a good team. We have a good lineup. So I think we'll be all right."