I’m currently blown away by the Cleveland Indians. When it comes to doing the right things to take care of their players and staff during a pandemic, they will not run around.
That the two pitchers who broke protocol to go out with weekends in Chicago last weekend? Two of the best pitchers in the American League right? The Indians send them out:
The Indians have activated Mike Clevinger and Zach Plesac from the restricted list and are both looking for the alternative education site in Lake County.
– Mandy Bell (@ MandyBell02) August 14, 2020
Good for the Indians, because they are just flat and do not walk with it.
This is the equivalent of sending these two to the minors. Plesac is not quite established yet, but he was solid last year and dominated this year. Clevinger, meanwhile, is a multi-year stud. If this is not an enormous message being sent by the organization, and an indication of what these two need to do to regain the trust of their teammates, then I do not know what else it could have been.
Teammates take it seriously disappointment in what Plesac and Clevinger did, which not only included going out with friends in Chicago against the health and safety protocols, but also Clevinger included attending team meetings and traveling with the team * NIGHT * Plesac was busted and sent home in in this car. Clevinger’s crimes were later found in one way or another, which led to him being scratched this week from the start of the Cubs against the Cubs.
The two put their teammates in danger, and then Plesac made things worse yesterday with a rumored “explanation” video that the media attacked for quite literally reporting on what he says he did: breaking protocol to go out to a restaurant with eight friends and then back to a house with that group.
This is a beautiful decision, and the reverberations will go through the whole baseball game. I will be fascinated to see the internal and external fallout.
