For the first time, it doesn’t feel premature to say “baseball is back.”
We knew everything was going to be different for Major League Baseball going into this season, but it didn’t make it any less jarring to see it in action in the Indians’ first exhibition game against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Players maintained their distance by sitting in the club seats underneath tents behind the dugouts. Some players opted to wear face coverings. And aside from players maintaining their distance in the stands, the park was completely empty.
But the most interesting thing is that it didn’t take long before all of those things felt - for lack of a better term - normal.
“It was definitely exciting to be playing in a different ballpark,” Zach Plesac said after the game. “They had the crowd music playing; it was a great atmosphere. It felt like a real game, it felt like there were fans there and it felt just as serious as a real game.”
Carl Willis told Baskin and Phelps on Friday that he felt his starters were coming out of summer camp at the same level they would a normal training camp, and Plesac’s performance showed just that.
The righty threw 70 pitches through five innings, giving up 6 hits and 2 runs. Plesac looked just as athletic as ever, picking off Pirates third basemen Colin Moran in the fourth inning.
Francisco Lindor also had a strong outing defensively, but said he still doesn’t feel he’s where he wants to be.
“It feels kind of like I’m in the third or fourth week of spring training,” he said after Saturday’s exhibition game. “It feels like I’m ready but I’m not picking yet.”
Tribe Takeaways from Saturday:
The Outfield
Terry Francona still has some decisions to make in the outfield before the season starts. Domingo Santana looked a little rough around the edges, missing a few key plays in the bottom of the fifth that gave the Pirates an early lead.
The Pitching
Willis said he thinks the starters will be able to throw for 90 pitches, which was evident by Plesac’s 70 pitches versus his counterpart Joe Musgrove throwing 40.
Tito was complimentary of Plesac’s performance after the game, impressed with his arsenal of pitches and “he’s really maturing right in front of our eyes.”
The Bats
“[Christian Arroyo] has that one swing that can change the game,” Francona said after the game. And he did just that with a 3 RBI double in the eighth inning that tied the game for the Tribe.
Franmil Reyes started out in the DH position, which will hopefully be a good fit for the power hitter.
The game started slow offensively, so there is still a lot to see from the Indians bats this season but they showed a lot of promise in Saturday’s game.
Empty Seats, Sparse Dugouts, Foot Fives, and all that’s different in 2020
It seemed strange at first to see a completely empty stadium, but the crowd noise easily remedied that to the point where the lack of crowds were almost unnoticeable without seeing the empty seats. Players did their best to stay distant from each other in the dugout while others sat in the stands, which felt weird to see but just like the lack of crowds, faded into the background as the game moved along.
The most encouraging thing about the Tribe’s first game against a team other than themselves was how all of the things that we thought would be strange this season didn’t seem so strange after all.
The Indians have two more exhibition games with Pittsburgh before the regular season starts on July 24.
