Cardinals battle through COVID crisis, will face White Sox in double header Saturday
The St. Louis Cardinals finally have a plan that should return them to the field of play on Saturday in Chicago.
President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak announced Thursday night that the team would resume play with a doubleheader against the White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field on Saturday.
The first game of that set will represent the first time the full team has been assembled since an initial outbreak of COVID-19 was discovered two weeks ago in Milwaukee.
“Confidence of getting back to play is very real,” Mozeliak said, “and we’re excited about that.”
Several roster moves are planned as part of the return to play, including the promotion of outfielder and top prospect Dylan Carlson. Also receiving their first calls to the big leagues will be pitchers Seth Elledge and Rob Kaminsky and infielder John Nogowski.
Mozeliak reported that a member of the team’s staff recorded a positive test over the weekend, increasing the total number of coronavirus-affected individuals to 18. Multiple reports published Thursday identified that staff member as a coach, but Mozeliak declined to comment, citing medical privacy restrictions.
“When we got that last positive it was not a surprise,” he said. “Contact tracing sort of indicated that that might be possible. So really, not having anybody else pop was the good news. That was encouraging.
“I think from a standpoint of where we’ve been mentally, yeah, every time test results come we get nervous. We want to make sure that they’re all negative.”
José Oquendo will ascend to the major league coaching staff from his role running the alternate training site in Springfield, likely acting as the third base coach. Roberto Mendoza, previously the manager of rookie-level Johnson City and also coaching this summer at Springfield, will also be promoted.
Pitcher Austin Gomber is expected to be placed on the COVID-related IL, though Mozeliak said that was the result not of a positive test but of contact tracing causing the team to act conservatively. Gomber could join the team as soon as Monday.
Pitcher Ricardo Sánchez, whose arrival at summer camp was delayed due to his own positive coronavirus test, will be part of the roster on Saturday as the 29th man allowed for a doubleheader. Major league rosters have shrunk in size from a maximum of 30 players to 28 since the Cardinals last played a game.
“We’ll have corresponding moves throughout the week because we play a doubleheader on Saturday, doubleheader on Monday, doubleheader on Wednesday,” Mozeliak said. “A lot of baseball coming, but really excited to get the green light to proceed.”
The Cubs traveled to St. Louis last Friday only to immediately return home after additional positive tests were confirmed among the Cardinals, forcing the postponement of the first three scheduled meetings between the clubs this year. The three-game series scheduled for Wrigley
Field starting Monday will provide an opportunity for the clubs to make up two of those three games, and Mozeliak said MLB will likely publish an official schedule update on Friday.
The Cardinals have acknowledged that, since the onset of the outbreak two weeks ago in Milwaukee, 10 players and eight staff members have tested positive for COVID-19. Of those 10 players, nine have consented to identification - Austin Dean, Junior Fernández, Paul DeJong, Ryan Helsley, Yadier Molina, Rangel Ravelo, Edmundo Sosa, Lane Thomas and Kodi Whitley.
Carlos Martínez has been placed on the injured list for undisclosed reasons.
The addition of Gomber to the COVID IL raises the confirmed number of players on that list to at least 10, creating challenges in manipulating MLB’s complicated roster rules. Players given the COVID IL designation can be removed from a team’s 40-man roster without penalty, but once re-added, those players taking their spots must be removed through the standard roster process.
Generally that requires either a trade or a placement of a player on waivers, which could expose them to selection by another club. Mozeliak, though, felt the Cardinals would be able to navigate those challenges.
“The fact that we play potentially 10 doubleheaders, we’re going to utilize all these players at some point,” Mozeliak said. “I think the real complication will be just managing how to keep fresh arms and how to keep that roster churning in a healthy way.”
Mozeliak pushed back against the notion that the difficult circumstances in which the Cardinals currently find themselves would change expectations for competitive success.
Several times he referred to the club’s “second chance,” emphasizing that a team which has only two wins and three losses now has the ability to show they value a chance to re-join the ranks of teams playing baseball.
“Everybody needs to be accountable for themselves and expectations of what that looks like are going to be very high and we will not tolerate mistakes,” he emphasized. “And I don’t want to make it seem like we are upset with where we have come from, because again, anybody could get this. It can happen to any business, any company, any team.
“But there still has to be a level of responsibility, and for us, our season now has been shrunk in the number of days, and therefore the commitment has to be that much more demanding and higher than where we were three weeks ago.”
This story was originally published August 13, 2020 at 5:14 PM.
