Red Sox relief pitcher Chris Martin spoke about his anxiety and now has the tools to deal with the problems

There were times when the fracture would have been attributed to a sore shoulder, a strained knee or something else, in order to spare the player the explanations and the ridicule of indifferent fans.

Or, worse, the player would have said nothing at all and simply continued on the field, regardless of his mental health condition.

Hang in there and keep playing. That was the motto for a long time.

Martin, who made his major league debut in 2014, once thought so.

“You can push things aside, but then it can get on your nerves,” he said. “So I went to the team and said there was something we needed to talk about.”

Martin had some medical issues that had nothing to do with baseball, which resulted in fatigue and him not being anywhere near his best when he took the mound.

“I just felt like we needed to take a little time off to get to where I was feeling a little better,” he said.

The Red Sox put Martin in touch with Dr. David Ginsburg, who heads the team’s behavioral health program.

“I struggled with anxiety for a long time,” Martin said. “Then it all gets to a head and you finally give up, get help, talk to a professional and feel better.”

Martin, who has a wife and three children, believes he now has the tools to deal with the problems rather than letting them persist and make them worse.

“I’m glad it’s happening,” Sox manager Alex Cora said. “First of all, you have to be honest and use this platform properly. I think that’s very important.”

“(Martin) wanted to be honest with everyone and I appreciate that and take my hat off to him. The fact that he opened up probably helped a lot of people out there.”

Cora remembers struggling on the field during his playing days with the Dodgers, while going through difficult times in his personal life.

“I don’t know if I was OK,” he said. “It affected me on and off the field.”

Changes in baseball are coming gradually. Teams first hired mental health coaches. Some prominent players had their own “life coaches” who gave them advice. Now every team has mental health specialists who are either part of the medical staff or advise the team.

“It’s hard to talk about,” Martin said. “But I know a lot of people go through it. Of course, it’s hard to put someone on the injured list for that because everyone is dealing with something in one way or another.”

“But it was stopping me from going out and doing my best, and I felt like I needed to get a handle on that.”

At 38, Martin is much closer to the end of his baseball career than the beginning. That was part of his problem, as he was worried about his family if he developed health problems.

“Fear can be controlled by dealing with it immediately and not allowing it to worsen and become something bigger,” Martin said. “And that’s what I learned in this situation.”

Over the past week or so, several teammates have approached Martin to express their support and, in some cases, to ask him how working with Ginsburg has helped him.

“People talk to me about similar situations,” Martin said. “You hesitate to come out and deal with it openly. As if that’s unmanly.”

“Many men find it difficult to be vulnerable and open up. I think being a man means opening up and saying you have a problem. Some men have come to me and now we can support each other and understand that we are not alone here. It’s OK to be vulnerable, to speak up and to talk about it.”

Martin was told that his honesty about the reasons for his retirement probably helped people he may never meet.

“I hope so,” he said. “Sometimes we all need a little help.”

Peter Abraham can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @PeteAbe.