David Ortiz

John Farrell told reporters Sunday morning prior to the Red Sox’ spring training game with the Yankees at Jet Blue Park in Fort Myers that the next few days will be key in evaluating where David Ortiz is in regards to his recovery from a right Achilles tendon injury.

“These next three days are going to tell a lot where David is at with his ability to remain loose inside of a given day,” Farrell said. “That’s probably the one question he has yet to answer to himself. When he gets hot, loosens up, it’s the time between that time in the day and his first at-bat and every at-bat after that — that’ll happen in due time, but that’s the one thing that can’t be fully answered, is just remaining loose without continuing to run or do any agility work.”

Farrell had suggested Saturday that if all went as planned, Ortiz would be seeing game action by the end of this week.

The designated hitter took grounders at first base Sunday. He took a day off from baserunning drills, which are scheduled to pick up in intensity over the coming days.

Regarding any contingency plans if Ortiz is not ready to go come Opening Day, Farrell said those conversations won’t be relevant until the team sees how the DH progresses in the coming weeks.

“We’ve been focused more on going from the agility work to the baserunning,” the manager said. “Every injury situation is going to be different and how guys respond to it, so I’m sure that bridge will be crossed.”

- Also talking to reporters prior to the Red Sox’ game with New York was Dustin Pedroia, who discussed his frustration with players still being caught using banned performance-enhancing substances.

“I don’t know if more tests would help, I don’t know,” he said. “I just know we, as players, you’re responsible to know what you put in your body. We have strength coaches, trainers, everybody gives us information on everything. You can take what’s good for you. We get our blood work. We deal with nutritionists. And I’m allergic to strawberries, so I don’t eat strawberries, the seeds. We have a lot of testing. … We have random everything.

“There shouldn’t be any slip-ups unless people are trying to get an advantagage, and that’s not fair.”

Pedroia said it’s not difficult to identify a motivtion to keep the game clean.

“I want all the young kids to see baseball as a game that’s pure and everyone can look up to them,” he explained. “I don’t want those kids looking down on their role models, so yeah, it’s upsetting, man. You don’t want to see that.”

- Xander Bogaerts update: The Red Sox infield prospect went 0-for-3 with a walk and run in the Netherlands’ 8-3, World Baseball Classic loss to Chinese Taipei Sunday. He hit sixth and played third base.