Orioles third baseman Manny Machado, who was cleared for limited baseball activities Friday after undergoing a follow-up exam coming off October knee surgery, said the earliest he will take the field in a spring game is mid-March, according to MLB.com.
He continues to be optimistic about being ready for opening day, but Machado said it's difficult to predict his return.
"Once I start playing I can give you a better, more or less, of an idea," said Machado, who will now begin running outside, taking ground balls and hitting. "Not a full-go yet. It's a process. Little by little, I'll be able to get back out there. It was definitely good to hear some good news from the doctor."
Machado added he has used video analysis to break down his stride and saw potential injury risks in the way he runs. Machado said fixing that will be part of the next phase in his rehab.
"It's all muscle memory," Machado said. "I've ran my entire life how I did last year, and obviously I had two [knee] injuries in the past two years, and that's definitely not right. And from what I saw, it's a fix, it's an easy fix, but it's something that's more mental than anything else. It's more of getting the right positioning and getting my gluteus and quads [involved]. Just getting my hips stronger and keeping it balanced, [keeping] my knee straight over my toes, that's something where when I was cutting yesterday, it's not much but just a little tap in that in the long run it might affect me some way or the other. So, it's better now that I have time to fix it and correct it and get better."