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Pedro remains optimistic Ortiz will return

Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports / Reuters

Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez can't quite convince himself that his good friend and former Boston Red Sox teammate David Ortiz is 100 percent committed to his retirement.

"I believe that if the team needs him, a little bit of a bat, in the middle of the season that I don't think David is going to let us drown just like that," Martinez told reporters Tuesday. "I know David, and I love him, and I am still optimistic. The only thing I'm not going to lose with David is the faith."

While Red Sox players reported to camp last week, Ortiz appeared to be enjoying the early days of his retirement from the beach.

Vacation week....

A post shared by David Ortiz (@davidortiz) on

"So good to be retired," Ortiz said from his beach lounger. "At the beach with the familia ... This is my spring training. How about that?"

Despite Martinez's optimism, Red Sox president Sam Kennedy believes there's no chance of an Ortiz comeback.

"He has made it pretty clear to us that he is retired and not coming back," Kennedy told Boston Herald Radio. "All of us who have been here for 15 years are holding out hope that maybe he would change his mind but I don't think so. He's told us he's retired and so we'll take him at his word. It's hard to move on past David Ortiz but we gotta do it."

Should Ortiz change his mind and come out of retirement, Major League Baseball rules stipulate that he must remain retired for the first 60 days of the 2017 season.

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