Written by James Wagner at WashingtonPost.com
Ryan Zimmerman had a lot to address Tuesday. He was among several athletes connected to performance-enhancing drugs in an Al Jazeera America documentary that aired in late December. Even though he later filed a defamation suit filed against the network, Zimmerman hadn’t talked about the allegations or the toll it has taken on him until now.
That took up the majority of his dugout news conference with reporters at Space Coast Stadium, and the merits of his comments and case will be thoroughly examined at a later date. But there was another important issue he addressed and was more immediately pressing: how is he going to stay healthy?
Earlier in his career, Zimmerman managed to play a lot. But over the past two seasons, the longest-tenured National has played only 156 games combined. Injuries to his thumb, hamstring, foot and oblique have undermined him immensely. As he showed from early August to September last season, when he is healthy and on the field, he can still be an impact player. Zimmerman believes that stretch — in which he homered seven times in 13 games — was some of his finest work in a long time.
“Before the oblique, I felt like I was playing the best I was playing since probably ’08, ’09 when I was playing like I should be playing,” he said. “It was nice to come back and get that confidence. Now it’s just a matter or getting rid of those little injuries, and that’s what we’ve been concentrating on this offseason.”
Zimmerman has had his share of impact injuries: diving back into second base and breaking a thumb (as he did in 2014) or diving for a ball and tweaking his shoulder (as he did in 2012). Those can’t be fully prevented — unless Zimmerman tries to change how he plays. But what Zimmerman feels like he wants and needs to avoid are the soft tissue injuries that have also plagued him, such a hamstring or oblique strain.
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