The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic forced many professional sports leagues to suspend operations for the foreseeable future. That includes Major League Baseball, who cancelled all remaining Spring Training games while indefinitely delaying the start of the regular season.
Opening Day was originally scheduled to take place last Thursday, but the festivities were ultimately pushed back by a minimum of eight weeks from the advice of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Though play could hypothetically resume in the middle of May, many believe June is a more feasible target for Opening Day. In the meantime, MLB players have been given the choice to either stay at their Spring Training facility, return to their team’s home city or travel back to their offseason home.
With Camelback Ranch having recently shut down at least until the first weekend of April, most Los Angeles Dodgers players are in a bit of a flux.
President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman understands that and revealed the club won’t be concerned with throwing programs for pitchers until baseball inches closer to resuming, via YouTube:
“We’re not even thinking right now about throwing programs. It’s kind of a de-load period is how we’re thinking about it. As things start to crystalize — and things are changing by the day — as things start to crystalize, we’ll start putting that in motion.”
Given the fluidity of the coronavirus situation, many players have been able to continue individual workouts, but presumably not to the extent of what they were while Spring Training was in session.
Prior to Cactus League games coming to a halt, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts revealed that Clayton Kershaw would have taken the mound on Opening Day against the San Francisco Giants. Walker Buehler and David Price were expected to follow him in the three-game series.
Julio Urias and Alex Wood are expected to occupy the final two spots in the Dodgers starting rotation, while the likes of Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May, Jimmy Nelson and Ross Stripling serve as valuable depth in the event of an injury.
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