Perhaps the St. Louis Cardinals once laughed about the 2020 season the way fraternal brothers do their college days.
Remember the time pitchers in careers in hotel rooms loosened their arms by throwing in a mattress? Or how over the week eight players made their big league bets, including the pitcher who gave up four straight home points in his first inning? And then there was the time the Cardinals made like a youth travel ball team and rode 41 rentals nearly 300 miles to play eight games in six days against the Cubs – BYO soup kits and orange spots.
For the moment, just surviving one of the earliest seasons ever is a deadly serious challenge of the day, now clearer than in an Instagram post this week of pitcher Carlos Martínez, one of 10 cardinal players and eight staff members who positive testing for COVID-19. Masked, dressed in a dress on his hospital bed and with an IV in his left arm, Martinez explained himself about the virus and wrote in Spanish, “Today I want to thank God for another chance at life.”
The Cardinals’ season was suspended for 16 days due to a COVID-19 outbreak during a trip to Minneapolis and Milwaukee. It went on again last Saturday in Chicago. Unlike in a strike year, it was the longest midseason shutdown for a team in baseball history, and the Philadelphia Phillies’ 11-day shutdown of 1903 flooded after its stands collapsed.
The reconstituted scheme of St. Louis has played 53 games in 44 days – plus what would be an 11th doubleheader if the last two games held in abeyance affected playoff spots. The Cardinals will get only two days off in those 44 days.
St. Louis faced obstacles like no other team, including the road construction that lay I-55 north of Pontiac, Ill, and most of the caravan of 41 cars. On the one hand, the Cardinals see the urgency endemic for a season 60 game. On the other hand, they have pitchers who do not yet have time to train well or who are not ready for the big leagues.
“Health is the most important thing,” said Cardinals president John Mozeliak. ‘Of course, if you have 18 members in an organization that tests positive for COVID, that’s very relevant. Almost as important is their baseball health. While we jump into these every-other-day doubleheaders, you will put a lot of stress on your bullpen. But we need to realize that this is for us like the second week of spring training.
Starters can only go anywhere from one to three innings. With relievers, it’s not like it’s a normal midseason where you guys can spend three days in a row. We try to prevent back pain. We told our players their health issues most. In the balance between their health and trying to win games, that’s what we’ll be doing wrong. I’m sure there will be times where people will ask, ‘Why not put Pitcher X in that place instead of Pitcher Y?’ ”
Says a rival general manager, ‘Her biggest challenge is not extinguishing relief. And her rotation was thin with her anyway [Miles] Mikolas out. I could see them getting a quick boost because I’m sure these guys are jealous of playing after everything they’ve been through. Long term? I do not know. ‘
The Cardinals went 4-4 in their eight-game “Chicago Summer Tournament” against the White Sox and Cubs. Only twice did a starter last above the fourth inning. Among the newbies placed was Roel Ramirez, 25, who placed a 4.98 ERA in Double A last year. He faced eight White Sox fighters and gave up six hits, including the four consecutive home games. He walked away with an ERA of 81.00.
Two days later, manager Mike Shildt removed starter 79 Ponce de Leon after 79 pitches, which comes to stand for stretching his starter. Shildt then called in succession to relief Seth Elledge (who made his big league debut two days earlier), Ryan Meisinger (who did not sit in the major last year after appearing in 18 games in 2018), Jesús Cruz (making his premier class debut), and Nabil Crismatt (who made his premier class debut the previous day). Meisinger and Cruz were only added to the 60-man player pool at the end of the 16-day squad. They threw a few bullpen sessions at the team’s alternative training site in Springfield, Mo., and found them a few days later at Wrigley Field. St. Louis lost, 6-3.
“We will have eight major league debuts on this road trip,” Mozeliak says. “We have tested a third of our roster positive for COVID. As you can imagine, it will create some difficulties. The biggest challenge for us is balancing the health of our players against the schedule.
‘We try to replicate as well as possible to get guys ready. There is no perfect map to follow. Of course, we should take advantage of our 40-man roster – even our 60-man roster. The rules we work with are not designed for a team that has an outbreak during a pandemic. “
Jeff Haynes / Sports Illustrated
Baseball teams have previously seen their schedules in disarray. In 1992, after handing over their home park, the Astrodome, to the Republican National Convention, the Astros embarked on a journey of eight cities covering 28 days, 26 games and 9,062 air miles. (They went 12-14.)
The 1991 Expos also played 26 games in 28 days on the road after a fallen tree closed its home park, Olympic Stadium. (Montreal went 13-13 on the trip of 6,526 miles.)
The Phillies played nine doubleheaders in July 1944 – and 44 for the season, when wartime doubleheaders were just to save gas.
The mother of all stays happened in 1899, when the Cleveland Spiders were such a bad draw at home that teams refused to travel there because of such trips that were money-losing propositions. The Spiders held out tours of 50 games and 36 games. They finished 20-134 with a cast of characters as colorful as the stickers on their suitcases. The Spiders featured Crazy Schmit, Harry (The Pitching Vegetable) Colliflower and Highball Wilson – and that was just their pitching staff.
But not one of the 1992 exhibits of Astros, 1991, Phillies 1944 and certainly the Spiders of 1899 was a pointer. No one ended up with a winning record. The Cardinals defend the Champions of NL Central, and come out of a season with 91 wins largely intact – on paper, however.
Wednesday, Jack Flaherty made his second start of the season – 26 days after he put on the opening day. Flaherty was one of the throwers who rearranged his mattress in Milwaukee for a backlog while lying in quarantine in his hotel room for six days. His start against the Cubs looked like a spring training outing: Shildt pulled him into the second inning after 41 pitches.
The Cardinals’ season went awry after just three games, apparently when players were lax on minutes on the first trip, potentially including not wearing masks when sharing food inside between groups of people. Mozeliak told reporters that a burglary “possibly” occurred in “the dining rooms.” The team has further strengthened protocols since the outbreak.
Pregame batting practice has been reconfigured, so “the number we put on the field is much smaller,” he says. The team provides meals at the hotel, while discouraging players from eating at the ballpark. New rules were posted for the plane ride home from Chicago: no food, no drinks and no socialization.
“The three pillars are, wear a mask, physical distance and wash your hands,” says Mozeliak. ‘All we’re talking about. I certainly see an increased awareness.
“We have a great group. There have been many days when people can let her go and yet she shows up with a great attitude. Even during quarantine, when they could only leave the room to test and then return, there were a few times that people were like, ‘Are there no other options? “And we would tell her, ‘No.’ And they accept it. ”
In a season like no other, the Cardinals have a schedule like nothing else. How they get through it is one for the history books.
“When I think about this club and how it will be defined,” says Mozeliak, “I think of it as one of the most patient, flexible groups there has ever been.”
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