The Cleveland Indians activated pitchers Zach Plesac and Mike Clevinger from the restricted list Friday and bought them on the team’s alternative training site.
The pitchers were placed on the restricted list on Tuesday for violating Major League Baseball protocols related to the coronavirus pandemic.
Chris Antonetti, the president of Cleveland for baseball operations, said both players had driven to Detroit with their gaming equipment and met with teammates prior to their three-game series against the Tigers this weekend.
Antonetti, manager Terry Francona and general manager Mike Chernoff then met and decided that it would be best to put Plesac and Clevinger on the alternative side instead of allowing them to rejoin the team.
“We spent time thinking about what gives our team the best chance of winning tonight,” Antonetti said, according to Cleveland.com. “… To be the best team we can be, we made the decisions we made to make them an option on the alternative site.”
Plesac on Thursday posted a six-minute video on his Instagram page to “reveal the truth” to fans, saying he and Clevinger were unfairly portrayed as “bad teammates, bad people and dragged across the mud.”
Francona said Friday that he was “disappointed” by the Plesac video. Antonetti said that if Plesac “had something to do, he could have said things a little differently.”
Plesac admitted to breaking up a team on Saturday when he and Clevinger left the team hotel, went to dinner and socialized with Plesac’s friends. Plesac had set earlier in the day, and got the win when Cleveland beat the Chicago White Sox.
After the Indians were told by MLB security about the players who were in public, the team received a car service to drive Plesac home so that he would not be exposed to teammates if he became infected by the coronavirus.
Clevinger did not tell the organization that he was with Plesac and flew home with the team.
On Tuesday, Indian cruiser Adam Plutko said that Plesac and Clevinger “were hurting us. They were lying to us.” On Wednesday, Francona said Plesac and Clevinger “have some confidence to earn back, and they need to earn that back.”
Plesac said Thursday that he and Clevinger were within Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines when they left the team hotel and were never with “more than eight people all night.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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