CLEVELAND – Indian pitcher Zach Plesac said he feels he and teammate Mike Clevinger were unfairly portrayed as “bad people” in the wake of the pitchers quarantined by the team for breaking the COVID-19 protocol last weekend in Chicago.
Plesac, 25, said he posted a six-minute video on his Instagram page on Thursday to “get the truth out” to fans about his situation.
He acknowledged that team breaks broke 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 the Indians defeated the White Sox.
After the Indians were told by Major League Baseball security about the players who were in public, the team received a car service to drive Plesac home so he would not expose the risk to teammates if he had been infected by the coronavirus.
Clevinger did not tell the team that he was with Plesac and flew home with the team.
The Indians placed the two right-handed men on the restricted list Tuesday, when fellow pitcher Adam Plutko said Plesac and Clevinger “sat us wrong. They left us.”
On Wednesday, manager Terry Francona said Plesac and Clevinger “have some confidence to earn back, and they need to earn that back.”
Plesac claims that his actions were not evil and that he and Clevinger practiced social distance when they were at a dinner party and afterward with a small group. Plesac said he has twice tested negative for the virus and understands the risks he took by going out.
Although he did not refuse to implement the breach of the team’s code of conduct to keep players safe, Plesac said reports about him and Clevinger were not honest.
“The media is terrible, man,” Plesac said in the video. “They do some bad things to make stories and make things sound better and things sound less.”
Plesac said he and Clevinger were within CDC guidelines when they left the team hotel and were never with “more than eight people all night.”
He feels he and Clevinger are cast as “bad teammates, bad people and dragged across the mud.”
Plesac said he understands the risks associated with COVID-19 and that his brother has Type 1 diabetes and his mother is a nurse.
“It breaks my heart that people think I’m a bad teammate as a bad person. But I wanted to share with you guys that progress is, here’s a lesson of selflessness learned, and at the end of the day I want everyone “I want to be a good teammate. I want to win baseball games, man. That’s all I want to do.”
Privacy laws prevent the Indians from disclosing test results for Plesac and Clevinger. The team did not say if the pair will be subject to further discipline.
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